m^AELlGlOn OF wSCIENCE 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Cliap._.._.._ Copyright ^o, 

ShelL_L.dy 
\^^6 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 



THE 



RELIGION OF SCIENCE 



BY y' 

DR. PAUL CARUS 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED 



My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. 
Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject 
thee that thou shall be no priest to me, Hosea 4, 6, 

Holdfast as a refuge to the truth. Buddha. 



\ mm 01896J 



CHICAGO ^^"^^ 
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
(LONDON: 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet St., E. C.) 
1896 






copyright by 

The Open Court Publishing Co. 

1893. 



PREFACE. 

The work of The Open Court Publishing Company, appears 
to be of purely theoretical importance ; but it pursues, neverthe- 
less, an eminently practical aim, which, briefly expressed, is to 
propound, develop, and establish the Religion of Science. 

The present booklet aims to sketch the isagogics of the Reli- 
gion of Science, intending to serve as an introduction to it, to pre- 
vent misconceptions, and to impart general information concerning 
its principles and scope. 

In order to establish the Religion of Science it is by no means 
necessary to abolish the old religions, but only to purify them and 
develop their higher possibilities, so that their mythologies shall be 
changed into strictly scientific conceptions. It is intended to pre- 
serve of the old religions all that is true and good, but to purify 
their faith by rejecting superstitions and irrational elements, and 
to discard, unrelentingly, their errors. 



The churches of to-day still pursue a policy which closes their 
doors to those who dare to think for themselves. Thus, the scien- 
tist and the philosopher will most likely shake their heads at the 
idea of broadening the established religions and developing them into 
the Religion of Science^ which will stand upon scientifically prov- 
able truth, and will base our religious views upon that one and omni- 
present revelation which is found in nature. But the undertaking 
is not quite as hopeless as it appears. The churches, and especially 
the American churches, are not as conservative and stationary as 



iv PREFACE. 

their dogmas pretend to be. Almost all our churches have, during the 
last two decades, grown immensely in depth and catholicity. There 
is a very strong tendency among them to get rid of sectarian nar- 
rowness and dogmatic crudities. The influence of science is felt 
in our religious life everywhere, and its ultimate aim, although we 
are still very far from it, can but be a rationalising of the religious 
faith and a broadening of the sectarian creeds into one cosmical 
religion, which will be the only true and catholic faith, the religion 
of truth, i. e., of scientific truth, the Religion of Science. 



We must introduce, on the one hand, the warmth of religious 
enthusiasm into the province of philosophy and science, and, on the 
other hand, the spirit of uncompromising criticism and scientific 
research into the domain of religious conviction. 

We must learn to know that Science is but another name for 
Revelation. 

* * ^ 

The Religion of Science is an appeal to all mankind. It ap- 
peals to all lovers of truth within the churches and without. 

Luther said somewhere, "The worst idols in the country are 
the sacraments and the altar " ; and Luther's criticism is pertinent 
still. The Religion of Science comes to protest against the idolatry 
of our churches and against their pagan spirit which alone brings 
them into conflict with science. 



The name, "Religion of Science, " has not been invented to 
denote a schism, but to proclaim a principle which opposes not the 
faith of the churches, not their moral spirit, not their Christianity, 
but their dogmatism, their trust in rituals and their paganism. 

The Religion of Science is not intended to be a new sect among 
the many other sects that now exist. The Religion of Science is no 
visible church v/ith a definite number of members, having a consti- 



PREFACE V 

tution, by-laws, and a creed. The Religion of Science is the invis- 
ible church, and its members are all those who, like ourselves, be- 
lieve in the religion of truth, who acknowledge that truth has not 
been revealed once and once only, but that we are constantly facing 
the revelation of truth, and that the scientific method of searching 
for truth is the same in religious matters as in other fields. 

Those who profess the principles of the Religion of Science 
may belong to any church or to no church. They may, without 
becoming indifferent to distinctions, call themselves Christians, or 
Jews, or believers in the Religion of Humanity, or Freethinkers. 
Their bond of union is not a common ritual, nor forms, nor ceremo- 
nies, but the common aim of searching for, of trusting in, and of 
living in agreement with, the truth. And this hallowed community 
of the invisible church is no mere illusion. 

To this invisible church belong Confucius, Zarathustra, Moses, 
Buddha, Christ, all the prophets, the saints, the investigators of 
truth, the inventors, the leaders of mankind, the learned and the 
great ; and also all the humble, the meek, the poor in spirit, those 
who hunger for the spiritual gifts which the heroes of thought and 
deed have procured in their hard struggles for progress and for 
the realisation of human ideals. 



The idea of the Religion of Science is as little Utopian as was 
the possibility of developing astronomy from astrology, or chemistry 
from alchemy, for the progress from the old dogmatic religions to 
the religion based upon our knowledge of the facts of nature is ex- 
actly of the same kind. 

Religions develop naturally. The religions of to-day are not, 
as some of their adherents pretend, the product of a supernatural 
revelation, but are based upon the science of the times when they 
were founded. Our religion must embody the maturest, surest, and 
best established knowledge of to-day. 



vi PREFACE. 

The Religion of Science is still a voice crying in the wilder- 
ness. Yet it comes from the heart of mankind and cannot be sup- 
pressed. Should it remain unheeded, it will be repeated by others 
that shall come after us, until its warning be heard and obeyed. 

We do not hope to reach our aim in the near future, but we 
are confident that our ideal is sound, and that the eventual evolu- 
tion of the religious views of mankind will justify our hopes. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction i 

Principles, Faith, and Doctrines 5 

The Authority for Conduct 17 

Ethics of the Religion of Science 25 

The Soul 33 

Immortality . . • ^45 

Mythology and Religion 63 

Christ and the Christians ; a Contrast 75 

The Catholicity of the Religious Spirit .91 

In Reply to a Freethinker = , loi 

Index .... 1 19 



INTRODUCTION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

We are born into the world as living, feeling, and 
thinking beings. We live for a while and then we die. 

And what is our life ? We toil, we suffer, we hope, 
we aspire, we work. Our joys are fleeting, and many 
of them leave behind them the lees of regret and dis- 
appointment. Only a few hopes are realised, only 
some aspirations are fulfilled, and only a part of our 
efforts is crowned with success. 

Thus our life appears as a transient phenomenon, 
narrow in its field, short in its span of years, and lim- 
ited in its power of achievement. 

What shall be our aim and purpose ? 

Shall we look for satisfaction in the little gratifica- 
tions that come from the pleasures of life? And is 
there no higher object than to live and be merry and 
pass away as though we had never been? 

We anxiously look for support in tribulations, for 
comfort in afHictions, and for guidance in the vicissi- 
tudes of life. And the assistance that we find is our 
religion. 

How can we acquire information concerning our- 



4 INTR on UC TION. 

selves and the world in which we live? How shall we 
find a religion ? 

Information can be had only through inquiry. We 
have to prove all things and hold fast that which is 
good. Says Jesus of Nazareth: ''Seek and ye shall 
find." 

The methods by which we try to find a religion to 
support and guide us must be the same as those that 
we employ in other fields of life and which are com- 
prehended under the name of science. In this sense 
we say, the religion we seek is the religion of science. 



PRINCIPLES. FAITH. AND DOCTRINES. 



PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. 

What is religion ? 

Every religion is, or should be, a conviction that 
regulates man's conduct, affords comfort in affliction, 
and consecrates all the purposes of life. 

What is science ? 

Science is the methodical search for truth ; and 
truth is a correct, exhaustive, and concise statement 
of facts. ^ 

What is the religion of science ? 

The religion of science is that religion wherein man 
aspires to find the truth by the most reliable and truly 
scientific methods. 

The religion of science recognises the authority of 
truth, scientifically proved, as ultimate. It does not 
rely on human authority, even though that authority 
pretends to have special revelations from some super- 
natural source. 

The religion of science accepts no special revela- 
tions, yet it recognises certain principles. It has no 
creed or dogma, yet it has a clearly defined faith. It 



8 PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. 

does not prescribe peculiar ceremonies or rituals, yet 
it propounds definite doctrines and insists on a rigor- 
ous ethical code. 

What are the principles of the religion of science ? 

First, to inquire after truth. 
Second, to accept the truth. , 
Third, to reject what is untrue. 
Fourth, to trust in truth. 
And fifth, to live the truth. 

Is there a difference in principle between religious 
and scientific truth ? 

No, there is none. 

There is a holiness about science which is rarely 
appreciated either by priests or by scientists. Scien- 
tific truth is not profane, it is sacred. 

There are not two antagonistic truths, one religious, 
the other scientific. There is but one truth, which is 
to be discovered by scientific methods and applied in 
our religious life. 

Truth is one, and the recognition of truth is the 
basis of all genuine religion. 

What are creeds and dogmas ? 

Creeds and dogmas are such religious doctrines as 
are propounded without proof, and the acceptance of 
which is demanded even though they may appear ab- 
surd before the tribunal of science. 



PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. g 

The principles of the religion of science admit of no 
creeds, yet the religion of science has a faith. 

What is the faith of the religion of science? 

The faith of the religion of science is its trust in 
truth. 

The difference between faith and creed is this : creed 
is a mere belief, faith is a moral attitude. Faith in 
creeds is the determination to be satisfied with unwar- 
ranted or unproved statements. The faith of the re- 
ligion of science is the conviction that truth can be 
found, and that truth is the sole redeemer. 

There are religious teachers who expressly forbid 
any investigation of their religious dogmas, and insist 
that rational inquiry shall not be tolerated in matters 
of faith. Their faith is called blind faith. 

The religion of science rejects blind faith as irre- 
ligious and immoral, and preaches that it is our duty 
to inquire into all the questions that arise in life. 

The religion of science is not a religion of indiffer- 
ence ; it does not proclaim that kind of toleration which 
allows every man to believe and act as he pleases. 
On the contrary, it proclaims most positive and stern 
doctrines. 

Religious indifference, as fashionable now as it has 
ever been in certain circles, is detestable to any one 
who is serious about truth. 

Let us have honest belief or honest unbelief, and 



lo PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES, 

abandon that unconcerned apathy of a half-hearted 
religion. 

He that is the first and is the last has said : 

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor 
hot. I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then, 
because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, 
I will spue thee out of my mouth. " 

What the Roman church claims to be, the religion 
of science is. The religion of science is the catholic 
and orthodox religion. 

We do not say that the truth as we know it now is 
perfect and complete. Not at all. We know compara- 
tively little, and the world is inexhaustible in problems. 
But we do know that truth can be attained step by step. 
Inquiry into truth is not only a scientific necessity, it is 
also a religious duty, and no pious devotion is of the 
right kind, unless it be accompanied by the spirit of 
research. 

While the religion of science rejects dogmas, it is 
not without doctrines; its faith is not without sub- 
stance. 

What is the source of the doctrines of its faith ? 

The doctrines of the religion of science are the re- 
sult of experience, not of one man only, but of the 
whole race. 

They have to be proved and are always liable to 
critical revision. 



PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. ii 

What does the religion of science teach regarding 
rituals and ceremonies ? 

The religious life of the established religions con- 
sists to a great extent in the use of sacraments, cere- 
monies, and rituals, symbols instituted to convey in 
allegorical form religious doctrines, and to express by 
visible signs and outward forms the invisible spiritual 
relations between men and God. Baptism, confession, 
the holy communion, matrimony, are such rituals. The 
religion of science does not deny that appropriate forms 
are needed to express in a worthy and adequate way 
those transactions which are of a religious nature. 
Ceremonies are one way of consecrating life and the 
most important events of life. Yet the symbols must ad- 
equately express the ideas, and the ideas must be true. 

The religion of science attaches no intrinsic value 
to symbols themselves, but only to their meanings. 
The symbols must not be conceived as the Indian con- 
ceives the spell of the medicine-man. They are mean- 
ingless and inefficient aside from the meaning that 
men put into them. There is no magic power in them. 
The religion of science has no objection to cerem.onies, 
but it does not prescribe special and peculiar forms as 
essential to religion, or as indispensable conditions of 
salvation. 

What are the doctrines of the religion of science ? 

(i) The religion of science propounds as one of its 

main doctrines that every act has its unavoidable con- 



12 PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. 

sequences, good or evil, according to the nature of the 
act. (2) The religion of science teaches that the moral 
commandments in which almost all the established re- 
ligions agree are sound. (3) That which is good and 
that which is evil must be found out by scientific in- 
vestigation. (4) The religion of science accepts the 
verdicts of science. 

This does not mean that the opinion of every scien- 
tist is to be accepted as science, but only those state- 
ments which are proved by rational arguments and 
can be verified by experience, or, if possible, also by 
experiments. 

What is the place of scientists in the religion of 
science? 

Scientists, as seekers of truth, are prophets of the 
religion of science. 

Prophets and priests have authority in the measure 
in which they represent the authority of moral conduct. 
They have no authority of themselves. Thus, to the 
faithful believer no amount of error or fraud in proph- 
ets and priests will overthrow their trust in religion. 

The same is true of science. 

Scientists have authority in such measure as they 
have investigated, found, and proved the truth. They 
have no authority of themselves. 

Scientists are subject to error, yet no amount of 
error can overthrow science and the authority of 
science. 



PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. i3 

The religion of science is based upon the authority 
of science, not of scientists, and science is not only 
physics or the so-called natural sciences, but it includes 
also sociology and ethics. Scientists as prophets of 
truth are indispensable helpmates of the preachers of 
morality. Yet scientists and preachers are mortal, 
like other human beings, and both of them are liable 
to error. 

As priests are frequently found wanting in religious 
virtues, so scientific professors are often lacking in the 
ethics of science. 

Scientists object to popes ; but how many of them 
revere their own persons as infallible vicars of truth ! 
And how arrogant, as a rule, how obstinate and per- 
vicacious is the tenor of their disputes ! What stub- 
born sticklers are they for trifles ! How great is their 
vanity ! Happily, there are exceptions. Yet even if 
there were no exceptions, the authority of science 
would stand in spite of all the shortcomings of scien- 
tists. 

It is to be conceded that scientific men are always 
at variance among themselves concerning truths to be 
discovered. This, however, does not contradict the 
fact that the truth can be found and clearty stated. 
Some questions have been settled for good, others are 
still open. The former are to be regarded as scientific 
truths. They are such as will be agreed upon by all 
those who take the trouble to study the subject care- 
fully. The open questions only are the objects of con- 



14 PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES, 

tention among the searchers for truth, and their very 
disagreement is a most important means for the dis- 
covery of truth. 

What is our relation to truth ? 

Truth is a correct statement of facts and the laws 
of its being ; it describes a power independent of us. 

Whether or not truth will be such as we desire it 
to be, is not the question. We cannot fashion or alter 
it. Being unalterable, we can only accept it and regu- 
late our life accordingly. There is no choice left 
for us. 

There is no reason, however, to be timid when 
finding ourselves at the mercy of a power beyond our 
control. We have developed into thinking, feeling, 
and aspiring beings, and our rational nature, which 
appears in its fullest efflorescence in science, enables 
us to make firm and certain steps. We can combat 
the evils of life, and better conquer them, the deeper 
and greater our insight is into truth. The very fact of 
our existence, such as it is, and the practical impor- 
tance of truth, inspires us with confidence in that All- 
being, in which and through which we have originated, 
and the laws of whose nature are beyond our control. 
We have no choice left but to trust in truth, and we 
have also good reasons to do so. 

* 

It is true that we are surrounded by mysteries, 
temptations, and afflictions. Yet these conditions of 



PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. 15 

our life urge us the more seriously to search for the 
truth, lest we go astray and become the victims of our 
errors. There is certainly no other choice ^eft for us 
than to take reality as it is, to understand it, and to 
act in concord with its laws. We cannot make the 
truth ; we cannot fashion it at our pleasure ; we can 
only accept it. But blessed is he who trusts in the 
truth, who harkens to its behests, and leads a life in 
which obedience to truth is exemplified. 



THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT. 



THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT. 

Is there any authority for conduct ? How do we 
know of it, and what is its nature ? 

Truth is a correct statement of facts ; not of single 
facts, but of facts in their connection with the totality 
of other facts, and, finally, with all facts, so that we 
can see the regularities that obtain as well in one as in 
other cases ; or, popularly speaking, that we can under- 
stand their why and wherefore. 

Truth, accordingly, is a description of existence un- 
der the aspect of eternity {sub specie ceternitatis'). We 
have to view facts so as to discover in them that which 
is permanent. We must dig down to that which is 
immutable and everlasting, to that which will be the 
same in the present instance as in d^ny other instance, 
so as to behold in facts the law of their being. We 
can make or mar almost all objects with which in our 
experience we come in contact ; but that peculiar fea- 
ture of facts which we describe in laws, the everlasting, 
the immutable and eternal, that which will be the same 
in the same conditions, is beyond our control. We 
cannot alter or fashion it. It is as it is, and we have 
to mind it in all things which we do or aspire for. 



20 THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT. 

These wonderful features of facts, which we call 
laws, have shaped the world and man, and the moral 
ideals of man. They are shaping the fate of the uni- 
verse still, and will continue to shape it for all time to 
come. They are the everlasting in nature, and if, in a 
figurative sense, we personify nature, we can speak of 
nature's laws as that which constitutes her character. 

When reflecting on this peculiar character of real- 
ity, we are overawed by its grandeur, but the most 
wonderful thing about it is that the laws of nature are 
ultimately not mystical, but easily intelligible. 

Science teaches us, step by step, that all laws form 
a harmonious system of laws. They are all corollaries 
of an all-pervading regularity. We have to regard all 
special laws as applications of general laws and learn 
thus why they must be such as they are and cannot be 
otherwise. 

If science were, or could be perfected to omnis- 
cience, the laws of being, we have no reason to doubt, 
would be pellucid as glass, and even in their most 
complicated instances as obviously self-evident as 2 x 
2=4, and the all-pervading plan would appear strik- 
ingly simple. 

Yet how prodigious and portentous are the results 
of this intrinsic harmony ! What strict uniformity and 
what astonishing variety ! What rigidity of law, and 
yet what a free play for all possible variations ! A 
stringent and irrefragable order in constantly changing 
conditions ! 



THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT, 21 

The everlasting in existence is the ultimate author- 
ity for our conduct, and, as such, it has, in the lan- 
guage of religion, been called by the name of God. 

The evolution of social beings takes place as all 
other events of nature according to law, and this law 
is briefly called the moral law of nature. The moral 
law is as stern, implacable, and irrefragable as any 
other law. Wherever it is heeded it will bring bless- 
ings j wherever it is disobeyed it will be followed by 
curses. 

All religious commands are human formulas de- 
signed to inform people how to live in accord with 
the moral law. Not the authority of religious com- 
mands, but that of the moral law, is ultimate. Reli- 
gious commands derive their justification from the 
moral law of nature. They are right if they are in 
agreement with it, otherwise they are wrong. 

The authority for conduct is a reality, the existence 
of which can be established by scientific investigation. 
The moral law of nature is as undeniable as the exist- 
ence of gravitation and as the reliability of mathe- 
matics. 

What has science to say of God ? 

Science does not speak of God, and need not speak 
of God, because it employs another terminology than 
religion. Moreover, it does not search for the eternal 
of nature in its totality, but in its various and particu- 



22 THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT. 

lar manifestations only, and expresses abstractly the 
results of its investigations in formulas called natural 
laws. 

While science does not speak of God, it teaches 
God ; for every law of nature is a part of God's being. 
Every law of nature is in its sphere an authority for 
conduct j it is a power which can be adapted to our 
wants only when we adapt ourselves to it. It is inde- 
pendent of our wishes and cannot be infringed upon 
with impunity. 

All the great religions of the world which (with the 
sole exception of Buddhism) have called the ultimate 
authority for conduct *' God," have represented him in 
the image of man. Religious Theism is almost without 
exception anthropomorphic. 



The various views of God are briefly denoted by 
the following terms : 

Theism, or the belief, without any qualification, that 
God, whatever be his nature, exists. 

Atheism, or the view that rejects any conception 
of God. 

Polytheism, or the belief in many gods. 

Monotheism, or the belief that there is but one God. 

Anthropotheism, or the belief that God is a personal 
being like man. 

Pantheism, or the belief that identifies the All with 
God. 



THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT. 23 

Deism, or the view adopted by the Freethinkers of 
the eighteenth century, who rejected miracles, but held 
that God is a personal being, the Creator and Legislator 
of the universe. 

Entheism, or the view that regards God as insepar- 
able from the world. He is the eternal in nature. 

Which conception of God is adopted by the religion 
of science ? 

The religion of science is not Atheistic, but The- 
istic. 

Monotheism, as it is commonly held, is the belief 
in a single God. In this sense monotheism is actually 
a polytheism that has reduced its gods to one in num- 
ber. Yet God is neither one single individual God nor 
many Gods. Number does not apply to him. God is 
one not in the sense that there is one kind of Godhood. 
There is not one God-being ; but there is divinity. 
God is one in the same sense that there is but one 
reason and but one truth. 

The religion of science rejects Anthropotheism and 
also Deism, which is only a peculiar kind of Anthropo- 
theism. 

The God of the religion of science is not a person. 
However, he is not less than a person, but infinitely more 
than a person. The authority for conduct which the 
religion of science teaches is divine and holy. We 
should neither call God personal nor impersonal, but 
superpersonal. 



24 THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT. 

The religion of science does not accept Pantheism. 
It does not regard nature and all parts of nature or 
all aspects of nature as identical with God. The eter- 
nal of nature only is God. Those features alone are 
divine which serve us as authority for conduct. We 
do not look up with reverence to the forces of nature 
which we utilise, but only to that power which moulds 
worlds, which fashions our being, and which moves 
onward in the progress of evolution. 

This view we call Entheisra. 



ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 



ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 

What is the essential difference between religious 
and irreligious ethics ? 

The ethics of the old religions can briefl}^ be char- 
acterised as obedience to God, vvhile the ethics of the 
atheist consists in the attempt to bring about as much 
happiness as possible. The former establishes an ob- 
jective authority of conduct which imposes duties upon 
us ; while the latter makes the criterion of morality 
subjective. The former is briefly called the ethics of 
duty ; the latter the ethics of pleasure or hedonism. 

The religion of science rejects the ethics of pleas- 
ure and accepts the ethics of duty. The authority of 
conduct is an objective power in the worlds a true 
reality which cares little about our sentiments. We 
cannot rely upon our sentiments, our desire for plea- 
sure, our pursuit of happiness, for a correct determina- 
tion of our duty. 

What is the part of happiness in ethics ? 

The ethical problem has nothing to do with happi- 
ness ; the ethical problem proposes the question. What 



28 ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 

is our duty ? And our duty remains our duty whether 
it pleases us or not. 

The problem concerning happiness is not, How can 
we satisfy as much as possible the desires which, we 
hope, will make us happy, but how shall we learn to 
be happy while attending to our duty ? 

The fact is, that the neglect of our duties causes 
great misery ; but the attendance to our duties does not 
by any means always imply an increase of happiness. 

What is the purport of happiness ? 

Happiness of which men speak so much and which 
is often so eagerly sought in a wild pursuit, does not 
at all play an important part in the real world of facts. 
Nor does it lie in the direction toward which our de- 
sires impel us. Happiness is a mere subjective ac- 
companiment in life which is of a relative nature. 

Happiness may be compared to a fraction, the de- 
nominator of which consists in our wants and desires ; 
the numerator, of their satisfactions ; and man's nature 
is such that their relation remains always a proper frac- 
tion. The denominator is always greater than the 
numerator ; for as soon as the satisfactions habitually 
increase, they are accepted as a matter of course ; we 
become accustomed to them, so that we no longer feel 
them as pleasures, which means, in the terms of our 
simile, we at once increase the denominator in equal 
proportions. 



ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 29 

Is there an increase of happiness through evolu- 
tion ? 

Duty requires us to aspire forward on the road of 
progress. But while our pains are constantly lessened 
and our various wants are more and more gratified, 
the average happiness does not increase. It rather de- 
creases. The child is, as a rule, happier than the 
man ; and a man of little culture is jollier than a sage. 
The fool is happy in his foolishness. 

Shall we abandon progress, culture, and wisdom, 
when we learn that our happiness will thereby be di- 
minished ? 

If hedonism were the right ethical principle, we 
ought to sacrifice anything for an increase of happi- 
ness ; but it is not. 

Nature does not mind our theories. Our theories 
must mind nature. We have to grow and to advance, 
and our happiness is only an incidental feature in the 
fate of our lives. In considering the duties of life, we 
should not and we cannot inquire whether our obe- 
dience to duty will increase or decrease happiness. 

Shall we regard the pursuit of happiness as im- 
moral ? 

Buddhistic and Christian ethics recognise the futil- 
ity of the pursuit of happiness. But in misunder- 
standing the spirit of the will of God, of the authority 
of conduct, of the moral order of the Universe, some 



30 ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 

disciples of Buddha and of Christ teach the ethics of 
asceticism. They regard the pursuit of happiness as 
immoral. 

It is remarkable that neither Buddha nor Christ 
taught the ethics of asceticism. Buddha expressly 
declared that self-tormenting v/as injurious and un- 
necessary for salvation, and Christ did not request his 
disciples to fast. He himself ate and drank so that his 
enemies reproached him with being '<a man glutton- 
ous and a wine bibber" (Matth. xi, 19). 

What does the religion of science teach of asceti- 
cism ? 

The ethics of asceticism is the morality of the 
monk. It is negativism. It aims at the destruction 
of life. 

The religion of science does not accept hedonism, 
but neither does it accept asceticism. The one is as 
erroneous as the other. 

The religion of science bids us inquire into the du- 
ties of life and to attend to them. 

Man must study his own self ; he must understand 
which of his desires are good and which are bad. He 
must inquire into the nature of the authority of conduct 
which prescribes duties to him. He must strengthen 
that part of his soul which aspires to perform duties 
and even identify his very being with the behests of 
the authority of conduct : He must become an incar- 
nation of God. 



ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 31 

This will teach self-control as the main duty to- 
ward one's self and justice as the main duty toward 
others. 

Asceticism may be regarded as an attempt at doing 
more than duty requires. The ascetic tries to become 
divine by suppressing or destroying the human. 

As soon as we understand that the truly human is 
a revelation of the divine in nature, we shall see the 
error of regarding them as antagonistic. By suppress- 
ing the human, we suppress the divine.* 

Let us not regard that which is truly human as 
being beneath the dignity of moral aspirations. 

The pursuit of happiness is not wrong, and to enjoy 
the pleasures of life is no sin. It is only wrong to re- 
gard happiness as the criterion of ethics and to believe 
that pleasures are the ultimate aim of life. 

* ^ 

Recreations, pleasures, and aspiring to happiness 
are not the purposes of life, yet they are in their sea- 
son not only allowable, but even moral duties. Re- 
laxation is necessary, and happiness imparts a buoy- 
ancy which helps man to accomplish his work. A 
rigorous suppression of our natural inclinations renders 
us unfit to attend to our duties. There is no virtue in 
morosity, and the happiness of living creatures, is, as 
it were, the divine breath which animates them. 

Every fact is suggestive, and every truth implies a 



* In this sense the sentence of Terence is often quoted : '^'^ Nihil humani 
a me alienum puto." 



32 ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 

duty. Our own existence, the relations to our fellow 
beings, the nature of reality and the constitution of 
the Universe — in a word, everything teaches us les- 
sons which we have to mind. There are duties toward 
ourselves, toward our fellow creatures, and toward the 
future of mankind. 

The prescripts of the religion of science keeping 
aloof from hedonism and from asceticism, may be 
briefly formulated as follows : 

Know thyself and the laws of thy being. 

Learn the duties which the laws of thy being imply. 

Attend unfalteringly to thy duties. 



THE SOUL. 



THE SOUL. 

What am I ? Whence dc I come, whither do I go, 
and what is the substance that constitutes my being? 

My fellow-beings appear to me, like all other ob- 
jects of my surroundings, as material bodies, which 
are in motion ; and so I appear to them and to myself. 
But the nature of ray own self is different. I am a liv- 
ing and feeling being. My own self manifests itself in 
consciousness. I am aware of my own existence ; and 
the whole range of my existence in so far as I am di- 
rectly aware of it, is called the soul. 

What is the nature of our soul? 

Our soul consists of impulses, dispositions, and 
ideas. I am a living, willing, and thinking being. 

Impulses are tendencies to act, naturally called 
forth in irritable substance by all kinds of stimuli. 
Habits are acquired by the frequent repetition of im- 
pulses. Impulses grown strong by inveterate habits 
are called passions. 

Inherited habits constitute dispositions or propen- 
sities which awake to activity on the slightest provoca- 
tion. They form the foundation of the various func- 



36 THE SOUL. 

tions of the organs of the organism, and also of the 
tenor of conscious soul-life. The latter is generally 
called temperament. 

Ideas are representations of things, or of qualities 
of things, or of relations among things. When ideas 
enter into the causation of action as the determinant 
element, they are called motor- ideas or motives. 

The elementary impulses of our soul are not clearly 
and distinctly perceived. They mingle into one com- 
mon sensation, which is quite general and vague. 
Sometimes only by special disturbances do some of 
the elementary impulses rise into prominence, appear- 
ing as hunger or thirst or pain of some kind. 

The realm of the activity of our elementary im- 
pulses constitutes what we feel as our life. 

Every impulse is a tendency to move ; and in so 
far as impulses are called forth by stimuli which act 
upon the living substance, they are called *' reactions." 

As soon as impulses become clearly conscious they 
are called will. Will, accordingly, is a very complex 
kind of impulse. Will is an impulse in which a clear 
conception of the result of the motion constitutes the 
main factor of the tendency to move. In other words, 
will is an impulse which has developed into a motor- 
idea. 

How do ideas originate ? 

Ideas develop out of feelings. 

That which characterises the soul of thinking beings, 



THE SOUL. 37 

is the significance which its feelings possess. Certain 
sensations are produced by certain stimuli, the same 
sensations always by the same stimuli ; and these pe- 
culiar forms of various feelings become indicators of the 
presence of the various conditions that cause them. 
Thus they acquire meaning, and meaning produces 
clearness. Meaning changes dim feelings into con- 
sciousness. 

The origin of meaning in feelings is the birth of 
mind. 

Sensations which take place inside the organism 
are, through habits and inherited dispositions, pro- 
jected to the outside, where experience has taught us 
to expect them. Sensations are signs, indicating ob- 
jective realities, and when through the mechanism of 
language sentient beings develop word- symbols, which 
are signs of signs, representing whole classes of reali- 
ties, they rise into the sphere of human existence. 

What is thought ? What is rational thought ? What 
is reason? 

The interaction which takes place between ideas 
is called thought. 

All sensations enter into relations with the mem- 
ories of former sensations ; and thus sentient beings 
naturally develop into thinking beings. Human thought 
which discovers and utilises the presence of universal 
features in reality is called rational thought; reason 
being the norm of correct thinking. 



38 THE SOUL 

The soul consists of many various impulses, but it 
possesses at the same time a peculiar unity. How 
are we to account for the unity of the soul ? 

A man can think incompatible ideas, but he cannot 
act according to them, at least not at the same time. 
He can, to be sure, successively obey motives that are 
self-contradictory, but he will have to stand the con- 
sequences ; so that a man will have to regret his ac- 
tions as soon as wiser and better ideas become dom- 
inant in his soul. 

The necessity of action imperatively imposes upon 
the soul a unity which would otherwise scarcely origi- 
nate. The whole organism has to act as a unity ; con- 
flicting impulses and contradictory ideas must come to 
an agreement. And thus the necessity of harmonious 
action exercises a wholesome and educating influence. 
It test*^ ideas in practical issues; it matures them by 
bringing incompatible motor-ideas into conflict, thus 
establishing consistency in the soul. 

If situations arise in v/hich several various im- 
pulses and conflicting motor-ideas tend to be realised 
in action, a struggle will begin among them and con- 
tinue until the strongest one gains the upper hand. 
This strongest motive, then, is executed by the organ- 
ism. 

The power of passions is all but irresistible in the 
savage, while rational ideas gradually gain in strength 
with the advance of civilisation. Long experience, 
inherited habits, and to a great extent, also, repeated 



THE SOUL. 39 

regret for rash actions, accustom man to act only after 
sufficient and careful deliberation. 

The habit of suppressing passions until all conflict- 
ing motor-ideas have measured their forces against 
each other becomes easier and easier, and its exercise 
is called self-control. 

The character of a soul depends upon the impulses 
and motor-ideas that are dominant in it. They are 
the decisive elements which determine the actions of 
a man. 

The decision which is the final outcome of delib- 
eration is comparable to a motion carried in a legisla- 
tive body. It is like the majority vote adopting a plan 
upon the execution of which the whole body of voters 
is now resolved, and these resolutions of the soul are 
called the will of man. 

What is the name of the unity of man's soul? 

The idea which represents the organism as a whole 
is called the *'I" or ego, and it is a matter of course 
that the I or ego always regards the final outcome of 
deliberations as its own resolutions. 

The ego, by itself, is an empty symbol. Its con- 
tents are those which the ego stands for, viz., the 
qualities of the whole soul; that is, of the impulses 
and motor-ideas of the personality which the ego rep 
resents. 

We say, ^'I have ideas"; but we ought to say, ''T 
consist of ideas." My ideas are real parts of myself. 



40 THE SOUL. 

The phrase, **I have an idea, "can only mean that 
this idea stands in connection with the ego-idea, rep- 
resenting the whole personality of myself. It is at the 
moment present in the focus of consciousness. 

The contents of the ego of a man, viz., the constitu- 
ents of his personality, are changeable. He wills now 
this, now that, and his actions at different times are 
often very incompatible with each other. But there is 
a continuity in his acts which is recorded in a chain of 
memories called recollections, in all of which the act- 
ing person regards himself as a constant factor and is 
called by the same pronoun *' I." The expression ** I " 
being for a continuous series of acts the same in spite 
of many changes, produces the illusion that the acting 
person himself remains the same throughout. 

However, we know for certain that the acting per- 
son, our organism, and the ideas of which we consist, 
do by no means remain unchanged. In the same way 
that our surroundings change, so we ourselves, our 
thoughts and desires, our organism, and our very souls 
change. We call the rose-bush which blooms in June, 
and is a dry, thorny stick in December, the same rose- 
bush. We call our body the same body, although the 
materials of which it consists are comparable to a com- 
plex whirl of atoms, the unity of which consists in the 
preservation of its form, for new materials are con- 
stantly pouring in, while part of the old ones pass out. 
And finally, we call our spiritual self by the same name 
**I," viewing it as a unity so long as the continuity of 



THE SOUL. 41 

its existenee is preserved, although our ideas do not 
remain the same, either in strength or in their con- 
tents. The changes in our character at an advanced 
age may be comparatively slight, but there are, never- 
theless, changes, which are not less real because they 
remain unheeded. Our self being the measure of 
things, they appear to change when we change, and we 
seem to remain the same j yet this unalterable same- 
ness of our self is a fiction. 

There is an error very prevalent that the ego-idea 
is the real soul. The existence of an ego-soul, how- 
ever, has been abandoned by science. Need we add 
that all those whose views and sentiments are closely 
intertwined with the conception of an ego-soul, look 
upon its surrender as a destruction of the very root of 
religion and of all religious hopes ? 

What is the effect upon religion of surrounding the 
conception of an ego-soul ? 

Our conception of the nature of the human soul 
has been as thoroughly altered through the results of 
modern scientific research as our view of the universe 
since the times of Copernicus. Copernicus abandoned 
the geocentric, and psychology the egocentric stand- 
point ; and future religious development will be in- 
fluenced in no less a degree by the latter than it has 
been by the former. 

New truths appear at first sight always appalling. 
They come to destroy the errors which we have ac- 



42 THE SOUL. 

customed ourselves to cherish as truths. Thus the 
truth naturally appears to be destructive. But look at 
the truth closer, and you will find that it is after all 
better and greater and nobler than the most beautiful 
fiction woven of errors. 

Appalling, and destructive of the very foundations 
of our religious conceptions, as the surrender of the 
ego may seem at first sight, a closer acquaintance with 
the subject will show that the scientific solution of the 
problem of soul life does not annihilate but elevates 
and purifies religion. It dispels the mystery of religious 
doctrines and preserves their ethical kernel. 

There is no metaphysical ego-soul, yet there is the 
real soul of our ideas and ideal aspirations, and the 
value of the latter is not less because the former has 
proved to be an error. 

All the religious enthusiasm which men have pro- 
fessed to have for their ego-souls, and of which they 
have proved the earnestness in deeds, expresses the 
natural sentiments for their real souls. 

Facts are often misinterpreted, and misinterpreted 
facts are rejected by many. We must reject the mis- 
interpretation and accept the facts. 

The welfare of our souls is the mission, or rather 
the ultimate object of life \ for what shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? 

How shall we value souls ? 

The worth of a man does not consist in his titles, 



THE SOUL. 43 

not in the honors he receives from his fellow-men, not 
in his possessions, not in his knowledge nor in his tal- 
ent, not in any of the externalities of his life, but in 
his soul ; and the soul of the poorest servant is not less 
than the soul of the wealthiest man, the most learned 
savant, or the most powerful monarch. Indeed, the 
soul in the bosom of the serf that is of the sterling 
quality of an Epictetus is, without qualification, supe- 
rior to the soul of a Nero, in spite of the dazzling 
talents, which made this imperial monster, in the be- 
ginning of his reign, appear as a genius on the throne. 

We do not say that worldly possessions are worth- 
less, nor do we consider knowledge and talents as an 
indifferent adjunct ; on the contrary, all the gifts and 
blessings of life possess their values, for they are in- 
strumental, and almost all of them are, in a greater 
or less degree, indispensable for the furthering and 
quickening of the life of the soul. 

Yet the v/orth of a soul depends first of all upon 
the moral stamina of a man's character, and the no- 
bility of the sentiments that dominate his being. 



IMMORTALITY. 



IMMORTALITY. 

Is the life of our soul limited ? 

Every personality consists of a definite idiosyncracy, 
of impulses, dispositions and motor-ideas, the pecu- 
liarity and relative strength of which admit of innume- 
rable variations. Now the question arises, Whence 
do the constituent elements of a man's soul come, what 
is the part they play, and whither do they go ? 

Our soul is partly inherited from our ancestors, 
(our dispositions,) partly planted in us by education, 
(in the main our ideas,) partly acquired by imitation, 
(our habits,) partly formed under the impression of our 
own individual experience, (in the main our convic- 
tions,) and partly worked out through reflection, (in 
the main our theories). Thought, i. e., the interaction 
that takes place among the elements of the soul, enables 
us to make new thought-combinations out of the stock 
of ideas that live in our mind. Thought renders the 
anticipation of future facts possible. 

Our soul, accordingly, has a long history, which 
neither begins with our birth, nor ends with our death. 
We existed wherever the ideas of which we consist 
were thought, and shall exist wherever they are thought 



48 IMMOR TALIT Y. 

again ; for not only our body is our self, but mainly our 
ideas. Our true self is of a spiritual nature. 

Our life is only a phase in the evolution of a greater 
whole, and the spiritual existence of ourselves, our 
soul, is a precious inheritance of the past, which will 
evolve in future generations to higher and ever higher 
planes of being and to nobler and ever nobler desti- 
nies. 

I. 
* * 

The preservation of soul-life after the death of the 
individual is not an assumption, nor a probability, 
nor a mere hypothesis, but a scientific truth which 
can be proved by the surest facts of experience. If 
soul-life were not preserved, evolution would be im- 
possible. Evolution is possible only because the souls 
of our ancestors continue to live in us. The soul of 
every individual is a peculiar idiosyncrasy of his an- 
cestors, and of the education received from parents 
and teachers. During his life he adds his own ex- 
periences^ good or bad, and when he dies his soul is 
gathered to his fathers, and together with their souls 
it floats on in the great stream of immortality 

The continuance of our soul-life beyond death has 
been expressed in many different ways. In the myste- 
ries of Eleusis it was allegorically represented by a 
torch which went from hand to hand and by ears of 
wheat that symbolised the reappearance of vegetation 
after its wintery sleep ; while Christianity expresses it 
in the dogma of the resurrection of the body. 



IMMORTALITY. 49 

Among Benjamin Franklin's manuscripts was found 
an epitaph which he had written in 1728, when he was 
twenty-three years of age. The many corrections 
found on the page were added, as we may fairly sup- 
pose, in later years, and show that Franklin had pon- 
dered on the subject, and that he had given much 
thought to it. The epitaph* runs as follows : 

' ' The Body 

of 

Benjamin Franklin 

Printer 

(Like the cover of an old book 

Its contents torn out 

And stript of its lettering and gilding) 

Lies here food for worms. 

But the work shall not be lost 

For it will [as he believed] appear once more 

In a new and more elegant edition 

Revised and corrected 

by 

The Author." 

The simile that compares man to a book is very 
expressive, as it sets the nature of the soul in a true 
hght. We are inclined to regard the binding, the pa- 

* We may add that Franklin did not make use of this proposed epitaph. 
He directed in his last will to have a simple stone with nothing on it but the 
names of himself and his wife. The passage in the testament reads thus : 

" I wish to be buried by the side of my v/ife, if it may be, and that a mar- 
ble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with 
only a small moulding round the upper edge, and this inscription : 



Benjamin | 

AND >- Franklin. 
Deborah j 178- 
be placed over us both," 



50 IMMOR TALIT V. 

per, the presswork as the essential elements of the 
book ; yet we must be aware that they are not its soul. 
The soul of the book is its contents. That All- 
being, in whom we live and move and have our being, 
publishes one edition after the other, and when one 
copy is destroyed, the book itself, i. e., the soul of the 
book, is not lost. If but the contents of the book are 
valuable, if they contain truth, it will reappear in a 
neAV edition, perhaps in a more elegant binding, but 
certainly revised and corrected and enlarged. 

What are the contents of the soul ? 

The contents of the soul form, in a word, a world- 
picture, the most important part of which, for human 
beings, is the relations that obtain and that ought to 
obtain in human society. 

The world-picture of the soul, however, is not a 
mere image of our surroundings painted in glowing 
sensations. Man forms a systematic conception of the 
facts of nature so as to behold the laws of their being. 

The world of which we are parts is permeated by 
law. All events are concatenated and interrelated by 
causation, and every act of ours has its definite con- 
sequences. Through a long process of evolution we 
have come to be what we are. Our surroundings have 
impressed themselves upon our sentiency and have 
moulded all our ideas and the motives that prompt us 
to act. Our ideas and motives are the quintessence of 
our being ; they are our veriest self, our soul. If and 



IMMORTALITY. 51 

in so far as our ideas are true and our motives right, 
they are the highest and best and most precious part 
of our existence, they are the divinity of our being, 
they are the incarnation of God in us, they are the 
soul of our soul. 

Is there a prototype of the soul ? 

Rational beings here upon earth might, in many re- 
spects, have developed otherwise than they did. It is 
not impossible that rational creatures on various other 
planets are in possession of different physical constitu- 
tions than we. They may have developed wings; they 
may have tongs-like organs unlike our hands for taking 
hold of things, etc., etc. Yet it is certain that they 
cannot develop another kind of reason. Their arith- 
metic, their mathematics, their logic must be the same 
as ours. Nay, more than this, the basic maxims of their 
ethics cannot be essentially different from those which 
are the factors underlying the growth and evolution of 
human society upon earth. In other words : The con- 
stitution of the universe is such that certain features of 
man's soul are necessarily such as they are and cannot 
be different in any other kind of rational beings. There 
are not prototypes of beings, as Plato maintained, but 
there is, nevertheless, something analogous to proto- 
types. The nature of rational beings is foreordained 
and conditioned by the very nature of things, and thus 
the biblical saying appears in a new light, that man 
has been created in the image of God. 



52 IMMORTALITY. 

The eternal in nature, the universal in the changes 
of the world, the law that pervades facts, has taken 
its abode in man; briefly, it is the truth which appears 
in his soul, and the truth is a correct representation 
of reality, it is a picture of God. 

Religious truth is not merely a scientific cognition 
of the parts of the world and a comprehension of all 
the details of natural laws ; it is a comprehension of 
our being in its relation to the whole, to God. And this 
comprehension must not be theoretical, it must per- 
meate all our sentiments, it must dominate our entire 
being and find expression in all the acts of our life. 

Why is the scientific view of the soul not readily 
accepted ? 

There is one great difficulty in this theory of the 
soul, of its divinity and of its immortality, as the re- 
ligion of science propounds it. There is no difficulty 
about its truth. We can readily see that it is undeni- 
able ; it can be positively proved. The facts upon 
which it rests are beyond dispute. But the difficulty 
is of another nature. We have great trouble, not so 
much in understanding, but in feeling that our soul is 
not our individual self, but God in us. 

We are so engrossed with materialism that we look 
upon the externalities of life as our real self, and this 
materialism finds expression in the forms of tradi- 
tional religions now. The binding, paper, and general 
appearance of a book is in the sight of most people that 



IMMORTALITY, 



53 



which constitutes its essential and entire being. Man 
finds it very hard to rise in his emotional life to that 
purity of abstraction which distinguishes between the 
contents or soul, and the present make-up or body, of 
a book, of a man, of ourselves. 

The question of immortality is a moral question. 
It requires a man of moral fibre to see the solution in 
its right light. It is not enough to understand the prob- 
lem ; we must live it. Our natural habits still tend to re- 
gard the unessential of our bodily existence as our real 
self, and all our emotions, our hopes and fears are ex- 
clusively attached to this present copy of our soul. 

We have not only to change the mode of our think- 
ing, but also the mode of our feeling. We must de- 
velop the higher emotions, which are in sympathy with 
the true essence of our being. We must unlearn the 
errors that make us lay too much stress upon incidents 
that have only a passing value, and we must regulate 
our actions from the standpoint of our spiritual nature. 
We must feel ourselves to be not the make-up of the 
present edition of our soul, but the soul itself. 

What is the natural standpoint of the unreflecting 
man? 

That attitude of a man in which, heedless of his 
soul, he takes his present make-up as his true self is 
called egotism j and the man with egotistic tendencies 
views the world from a standpoint which does not 
show matters in a correct perspective. 



54 IMMORTALITY. 

The whole world and his own self are pictured to 
the egotist in distorted proportions. All his feelings, his 
sympathies, and antipathies, too, become perverted. 

Why must we abandon the standpoint of egotism ? 

It is apparent that all the purposes of a man which 
are designed to serve his egotistic desires only, will be 
vain, and if he were ever so successful in his efforts, 
death will step in at last and annihilate the very pur- 
pose for which he lived. 

Nature does not want egotism. She suffers it with 
forbearance, leaving a man time to find the narrow 
road to life, but then she cuts him down and selects 
from the harvest which he had gathered in for himself 
that which she can use for the progress of mankind, 
leaving him only the bitter knowledge that the fruits 
of his work are taken from him and that he has sowed 
what another shall reap. 

Unless a man's entire emotional life be centred in 
his soul, his life will be a failure. 

Is the abandonment of the egoistic standpoint a 
resignation ? 

This view of the soul appears to those who still 
cling to the conception of an ego-soul as a resignation ; 
and in a certain sense it is a resignation. We have to 
give up the idea that our real self belongs to ourselves. 
Our soul is not our own, but mankind's ; and man- 
kind in its turn is not its own ; the soul of mankind is 



IMMORTALITY 55 

from God, it develops in God, and all its aspirations 
and yearnings are to God. 

Yet the characterisation of this view of the soul as 
a resignation will produce an erroneous impression. 
There is as little resignation about it as when in a 
fairy-tale a shepherd-lad finds out that he is a prince. 
The resignation consists in resigning an error for truth. 
What we regarded as our self is not our self, but only 
a fleeting shadow, and our true self is much greater 
than we thought it was. The shepherd-boy in the 
fairy-tale might with the same reason say that his very 
existence had been wiped out, as some psychologists 
speak of the annihilation of the soul, when only the 
ego-conception of the soul is surrendered. 

When our sphere of being becomes widened we 
should not speak of annihilation, and when we grow 
beyond that which at first blush we seem to be, we 
should not represent it as a resignation. 

He who regards this view of the soul as a resigna- 
tion only indicates that his sympathies, his hopes and 
fears are still with the externalities of our existence. 
The moment the very consciousness of our selfhood is 
transferred into our soul-existence, we shall cease to 
feel any. resignation in this change of view. 

What objection is made to the abandonment of the 
ego-soul ? 

The objection has been raised that there is neither 
satisfaction nor justice in the idea that others shall 



56 IMMOR TALIT V. 

reap the fruits of our labors. But this objection has 
sense only from the standpoint of an ego-conception 
of the soul. The truth is that the future generations 
of mankind are not ''others"; they are we ourselves. 
We have inherited in the same way not only the bless- 
ings of former generations, but their very being, their 
souls : we are their continuance. 

It is not an empty phrase to say that the former 
generations of mankind are still alive as a part of our- 
selves. For suppose that the soul-life of the past were 
entirely annihilated and no vestige of it left, would 
not our own existence at once sink to the level of mere 
amoeboid existence ? The thought of this will convince 
us how truly real is the continuance of soul-life after 
death ! The souls of our beloved are always with us 
and will remain among us until the end of the world. 

What does the new conception of the soul imply? 

Our spiritual nature imposes duties upon us ; it 
teaches us to regard our life as a phase only of a 
greater and a more complete evolution, and commands 
us to rise above the narrowness of our transient and 
limited existence. 

As soon as we rise above the pettiness of our indi- 
vidual being, the boundaries of birth and death van- 
ish, and we breathe the air of immortality. But this 
change of standpoint is of great consequence. It af- 
fects our entire existence and brings about a radical 
change of our world-conception. It is like a new birth 



IMMOR TALIT V. 57 

which will above all be felt in our conduct. The higher 
standpoint of immortality introduces a new principle 
which will almost reverse our former habits and intro- 
duce a new criterion of what is to be regarded as right 
or wrong. 

The moral commandments are rules of action which 
appear as a matter of course to him who has been 
born again, who has raised himself to the higher plane 
of soul-life, and whose sentiments and expressions of 
this attitude are what Christianity calls ''love." 

The moral commandments are forced upon the 
egotist, and the egotist naturally regards them as im- 
positions. However, he whose attitude is that of love, 
does not feel in this way. He fulfils the command- 
ments of his own free will. 

Our sympathies must be the sympathies of our 
better self, and if they are, our course of action will, 
without any interference of the law, lead us to do any- 
thing the law and the rules of equity demand. 

There is no resignation in truly moral conduct. 
Moral conduct should be the expression of our char- 
acter; it should flow naturally from the nature of our 
being. 

II. 

Immortality is the most important of all religious 
topics, and it appears desirable to consider the most 
stringent objections that can be made against it. 

Dr. Robert Lewins,* a radical freethinker of Eng- 

*See Agnostic Journal, XXXIV, No. 26, and The Open Court, No. 360. 



58 IMMORTALITY. 

land, arraigns the Religion of Science for its accep- 
tance of a belief in God and in Immortality, saying : 

" The assumption is utterly untenable, though held by Kant, 
Voltaire, Rousseau, and even, though more obscurely, by Fred- 
erick the Great and David Hume, whose influence on the litera- 
ture, history, and politics of their age was so conspicuous. Spite 
of his vast culture, and probably as its consequence, a remnant 
of chromatic metaphysics still seems to cling to Dr. Carus." 

**This chromatic metaphysics is," according to 
Dr. Lewins, ''a barrier to achromatic reality," and he 
demands that '^all forms of Spiritualism or Animism, 
including Theism, Demonism, and posthumous human 
existence, must be relegated to the sphere of our racial 
credulity and superstition." 

Now we agree with Dr. Lewins in the aspiration of 
having reality as achromatic as possible, but declare 
at the same time that a flat denial of ^'posthumous 
human existence " is an error. The continuance of 
man's soul as described in the Religion of Science is 
not a coloring of facts, it is not chromatic, it is not a 
distortion of truth, but it is an exact statement of the 
conditions of life as they are in reality. 

Some time ago the following two questions con- 
cerning immortality were put to me : 

" Do you believe in the survival of man as a distinct individu- 
ality after bodily dissolution ? 

"Do you believe that man after such bodily dissolution, can, 
as a distinct, conscious, intelligent being communicate with those 
who still live in the flesh ?" 



IMMORTALITY. 59 

My reply was this : 

" In answer to the first question I should say : I understand by 
individuality not only man's soul, viz., his sensations, thoughts, and 
ideals, but his entire existence, including his bones, muscles, sin- 
ews, and all the material particles of which at a given time his 
body consists. Accordingly, I believe in the final dissolution of 
his individuality, and count it no loss ; but I believe at the same 
time in the survival of the most essential part of man's individu- 
ality, I believe in the survival of man's soul. 

• 'To the second question I should answer: Not only do the souls 
of our dead continue to communicate with those who still live in 
the flesh, but they are present in their minds, and they v/ill form 
parts of the souls of the generations to come. The relation be- 
tween the dead and the living is too intimate to be called a com- 
munication. The souls of the dead form an ever-living presence 
in the souls of the living. Progress and evolution to higher stages 
is only possible because the souls of former generations continue 
to live. If the souls of our ancestors were not with us and in us, 
what a wretched, and, indeed, merely amoeboid existence would we 
lead." 

There is not an iota of metaphysicism or animism 
left in this view of immortality. But perhaps my critic 
will say that this is no immortality; that this is a 
proposition which teaches the final annihilation of 
man's personality in death. If he does, he is blind to 
facts and fails to recognise the importance of that 
which survives of us, which is not a mere trace of us, 
but the essence of our personality, our very soul, the 
substance and worth of our being. 

In one sense, transiency is the order of the uni- 
verse, in another sense, permanency. The present 



6o I MM OR TALIT Y. 

changes into the past, never to be the present again ; 
it passes away. Every happening in the physical 
world takes place never to happen again in exactly 
the same way and under the very same circumstances. 
But being embodied in the past, it remains an actual 
part of the constitution of the world. It has become 
a factor for all the future, and will be a determinant 
of any possible present to come. In the same way 
every act of ours passes awa}^, yet it is immortalised : 
it remains an indelible reality of our life, influencing 
and shaping our fate. Every thought of ours once 
thought and buried in the past of former years is, in a 
certain sense, gone forever, but in another sense, it 
remains an everpresent reality, and our soul is a grand 
structure consisting of the immortalised precipitate of 
the sentiments, ideas, and acts done in past years, 
dating back to the beginning of soul-life upon earth. 
What is true of all events in the physical world 
and of the facts of our psychical existence, is true also 
of whole human lives. Nothing is lost in this world, 
least of all a human soul. To be gathered to our 
fathers does not mean to be buried in the ground, but 
to be embodied as a living element into the evergrow- 
ing organism of mankind. There we are preserved as 
a living presence with all our peculiarities and with 
the entire personality of our being. Death is a disso- 
lution of our body; it is the end of our career; it is 
the discontinuance of our activity in this individuality 
of ours. Yet is it no annihilation of our thoughts, of 



IMMORTALITY. 6i. 

our soul, of our spiritual existence, of ourselves. Deeds 
live on ; and what are we but the summation of our 
deeds! Our deeds, that is to say, we ourselves, continue 
after death as much as the memory of a useful knowl- 
edge which we have learned in the days of our youth 
remains an essential part of us throughout life. 

Thus we may lament the premature cutting off of 
a valuable life by death, but we cannot complain about 
the annihilation of a man's soul ; for it continues, it is 
here with us and in us. We might as well complain 
of the transiency of our school-years, forgetful of the 
fact that both the knowledge we have acquired and 
the fond recollections of dear friends are permanent. 

The past lives on in the present and the dead con- 
tinue in the living. Every soul is and remains for ever 
a citizen of that invisible empire of spiritual existence 
which is always coming, always near at hand, and al- 
ways developing and growing. This empire of spiritual 
life is not a phantom but an actuality. If anything is 
real, // is real. It is the kingdom of God of which 
Jesus said that it is within us. 

Now, in the face of facts and in the face of the im- 
portant part which the continuance of the soul plays 
in our life, shall we at the funeral of our dead step 
forward and preach the annihilation of their existence ? 
Shall we say at the open grave of a friend that the be- 
lief in immortality is a remnant of metaphysics and 
animism to be relegated to the sphere of superstition? 
No ! Spiritual facts are not less real than rocks and 



62 I MM OR TALIT V. 

trees. Immortality is a truth as much as the existence 
of man's soul ; and a denial of it will warp our entire 
world-conception. 

As it is difficult for the uneducated mass of man- 
kind to recognise the reality of the truth of immortality 
and to appreciate its paramount importance, the various 
religions have taught it in allegories which in Chris- 
tianity have been crystallised into the dogma of resur- 
rection. The doctrine of resurrection is a parable, and 
the parable contains allegorical expressions which are 
crude and inappropriate ; but the idea contained in it 
is a truth. Science rejects the assumption of a ghost- 
soul and also of a ghost-immortality, but science estab- 
lishes at the same time the reality of the continuance 
of man's soul after death. 

The immortality of the soul as taught by the Reli- 
gion of Science is as complete and full as any faithful 
Christian can reasonably expect. It is as real as the 
continuance of our self which we daily experience. It 
is not of less value, but of more value than the ghost- 
immortality of an impossible dualism ; it is not ghastly, 
not grotesque, not absurd (as Dr. Lewins says), but 
noble, elevating, and comforting. 

The immortality of the soul, such as the Religion 
of Science proposes, is right here in this actual world 
of ours, not in a celestial Utopia ; it is real and not il- 
lusory ; it is a fact and not a dream ; it is an undeni- 
able truth and not, as Voltaire, Frederick the Great, 
and his friends thought, a grand J>e7/J etre. 



MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION. 



MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION. 

What is the attitude of the religion of science to- 
wards other religions ? 

The religion of science is not hostile to the spirit 
of the traditional religions : on the contrary, being their 
matured product, it regards them as harbingers that 
prepare the way. 

The dogmatic religions are mythologies which at- 
tempt to teach the truth in parable and allegory. They 
are prophecies of the religion of truth. 

Is mythology injurious ? 

Mythology in itself is not injurious ; on the con- 
trary, it is a necessary stage in the evolution not only 
of religion, but also of science. Man's mode of con- 
veying thought is essentially mythological. All lan- 
guage is based upon similes and we shall perhaps never 
be able to speak without using figures of speech. 

The religion of science does not come to destroy 
the mythologies of old religion ; it does not come to 
destroy but to fulfil. 

What is the nature of the mythology of science ? 
Science no less than religion had to pass and, in 
many of its fields, is still passing, through a mytholog- 



66 MYTHOLOGY AMD RELIGION, 

ical period ; and this mythological period is often 
marked by fantastic notions and extravagant vagaries. 
Astrology preceded astronomy, and alchemy preceded 
chemistry. 

It is a great mistake of the chemist to look down 
upon the alchemist, and of the astronomer to speak 
v/ith contempt of the astrologer of former ages. It is 
a sign either of narrowness or of a lack of information 
to revile our ancestors because they knew less than we. 
Baron Liebig was the greatest chemist of his times \ 
yet he speaks with profound respect of the aspirations 
and accomplishments of the alchemists. Those upon 
whose shoulders we stand deserve our thanks not our 
contempt. Let us not despise the anthropoid from 
whose labors man has risen to the height of a human 
existence ! 

The mythology of science still clings to us to-daj^ 

When does mythology become injurious ? 

Mythology becomes injurious as soon as it is taken 
as the truth itself. 

Mythology thus produces that self-sufficient spirit 
of dogmatism, which prevents further inquiry into truth. 

What is the origin of the mythological religions ? 

The historical religions v/ere founded at a time when 
science and its methods of inquiry did not as yet exist. 
Yet religion was wanted. People cannot live without 
spiritual support and solace and guidance. And as the 



MYTHOL OGY AND RELIGION. 67 

old Egyptians instinctively discovered such tools as 
the lever and other simple instruments helpful to them 
in their work long before they understood the princi- 
ples of these contrivances \ as mankind in general in- 
stinctively invented language as a means of communi- 
cation without having any philological knowledge, and 
even without the least inkling of the laws of grammar 
and logic : so some prophets rose among our ancestors 
preaching to them some simple rules of conduct which 
they had instinctively found when pondering on the 
miseries caused by criminal and ruthless behavior. 

The nobler conduct, preached by prophets and en- 
forced by the evil consequences of sin, raised man- 
kind to a higher ground. Men learned to feel and 
appreciate the truth of the religious authority which 
proclaims the moral commands ; and the religious 
convictions thus established proved even in their im- 
perfect form an invaluable source of solace and help 
in the tribulations of life. 

Does the law of evolution apply to religion also ? 

Religion develops according to natural laws. Not 
only the human body and all living creatures, but also 
such intangible and spiritual entities as science, law, 
language, and social institutions are products of evo- 
lution, and religion forms no exception. 

The hypotheses of science are often formulated 
with the help of analogies, and these analogies contain 
figurative expressions. We speak for instance of elec- 



68 MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION-. 

trie currents, as if electricity were a fluid. This method 
of using analogies which is of great service in scientific 
investigations must not be taken as real science : it is 
the mythology of science. 

The mythology of science is no less indispensable 
in the realm of investigation than it is in the province 
of religion ; but we must not forget that it is a means 
only to an end, the ideal of scientific inquiry being and 
remaining a simple statement of facts. 

While we may be able to free ourselves from the 
shackels of mythology in science and philosophy, must 
we, perhaps, still retain them in religion ? 

The progress of religion in this direction will be the 
same as in science and philosophy. 

Progress of science means the formation of new 
ideas, and the purification of our old ones. The myth- 
ological elements must be separated from the pure 
statement of facts, the latter being the grain, the for- 
mer the chaff ; the latter are the truth, the former our 
mythologies, being the methods of reaching the truth. 

The chaff is the husks, and grain cannot grow with- 
out the wholesome protection of the husks. The truth 
contained in mythological allegories is their all-im- 
portant element, which has to be sifted out and pre- 
served. The rest is to be discarded ; it has served an 
educational purpose and will have to be relegated to 
the history of science. 

Religious progress, no less than scientific progress, 



MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION. 69 

is a process of growth, it is an increment of truth, and 
also a cleansing from mythology. 

Religion is a world-conception regulating man's 
conduct. Our world-conception grows with every new 
information, and all those new ideas from which we 
derive moral rules of conduct become religious ideas. 

As science began with the crude notions of primi- 
tive animism, so did religion begin with a mythology 
full of superstition. And the ideal of religion is the 
same as that of science, it is an increase of truth as 
well as a liberation from mythological elements. The 
more complete our knowledge is, the less is our need 
of hypotheses, and mythological expressions can be 
replaced by exact statements of fact. Both science and 
religion are to be based upon a concise but exhaustive 
statement of facts, which is to be constantly enlarged 
by a more complete and more accurate experience. 

The ultimate goal of religious development is the 
recognition of the truth with the aspiration to live in 
conformity to the truth. 

Mythology which is conceived to be the truth itself 
is called paganism. 

Paganism is the notion that the parable is the mean- 
ing it involves, that the letter is the spirit, that myth- 
ology is the truth. 

It is certainly no error to believe that virtue, jus- 
tice, beauty, love, and other ideas have a real and true 
existence in reality. They whose spiritual eyes are 
too dim to see and to understand their being, will be 



70 MYTHOL OGY AND RELIGION. 

greatly berxcfited by the representations of the artist 
and the poet, who present those ideals to us, the latter 
in our imagination, the former visibly in marble as per- 
sonal beings, as gods. There is no wrong in similes, 
there is no fault to be found with parables. But he 
who believes that these gods are personal beings, he 
who takes the mythology to be the actual truth, is 
under the spell of a gross misconception, and this mis- 
conception is paganism. 

Paganism leads to idolatry. He who worships the 
symbol is an idolater. 

The dogmatic religions of to-day are still under the 
spell of paganism ; and even Christianity, the highest, 
the noblest, and most humane of all religions, is not 
yet free of idolatry, — a fact which appears in many 
various customs and ceremonies. Sacrifices have been 
abandoned, but prayer, adoration, and other institu- 
tions still indicate the pagan notion that God is like a 
human being, that he takes delight in receiving honors, 
and that upon special considerations he will change 
his decrees and reverse the order of nature for the sake 
of those whom he loves. 

The religion of science does away with paganism 
and idolatry. 

The religion of science rejects the religion of adora- 
tion, and prescribes only one kind of worship — the 
worship in spirit and in truth which consists in obeying 
the authority of moral conduct, 



MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION. 71 

The religion of science rejects all the vain repeti- 
tions of such prayers as attempt to change not our will 
but the will of God. Those prayers only are admitted 
by the religion of science which set our souls in har- 
mony with the authority of conduct, which consists in 
self-discipline and teach us to say with Jesus of Naza- 
reth *' Not our, but Thy v/ill be done ! " 

What are the sources of religious truth ? 

The religion of science knows of no special revela- 
tions ; it recognises only the revelation of truth, open 
to all of us, as it appears in our experience, viz., in 
the events of nature surrounding us, and also in the 
emotions of our own heart. 

Religion is not due to a supernatural revelation, 
but to the same natural revelation to which science 
owes its existence. 

The form of the established religions is mytholog- 
ical, for its founders spoke in parables, and the alle- 
gorical form of their teachings was quite adapted to 
the age in which they lived. 

New problems have arisen with the growth of sci- 
ence. The mythology of our religions has become 
palpably untenable, and we are no longer satisfied with 
the dogmas extracted from parables. 

Is there any conflict between religion and science ? 

True science and true religion can never come in 
conflict. If there is any conflict between religion and 



72 MYTHOL OGY AND RELIGION. 

science, it is a sign that there is something wrong in 
either our science or our religion, and we shall do well 
to revise them both. 

This is the conflict that at present obtains between 
science and religion. The infidel laughs at the im- 
postures of religion, while the bigot demands an im- 
plicit surrender of reason. 

The infidel as well as the bigot are under the er- 
roneous impression that the mythology of religion is 
religion itself. 

What is to be done? 

The bigot demands that science be muzzled, and 
the infidel proposes to eradicate religion. 

Shall we follow the bigot who wants the errors of 
paganism to continue ? Or shall we follow the infidel? 
Shall we root out science, because it is not as yet free 
from mythology ? Shall we eradicate mankind because 
there are traces of barbarism left in our institutions, 
even to-day? Shall we abandon religion because it 
still retains some of the superstitious notions of pa- 
ganism? 

We follow neither the bigot nor the infidel, but 
propose confidently to advance on the road of pro- 
gress. It is the course prescribed by nature, which 
willingly or unwillingly we shall have to pursue. 

The ideal towards which every religious evolution 
tends, is to develop a Religion of Truth. And this ideal 
can be reached only through an honest search for the 



MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION. 73 

truth with the assistance of the scientific methods of 
inquiry. 

Christianity possesses an ideal which is called *' the 
invisible church." Even the most devout Christians 
are aware of the fact that the present condition of the 
church is not the realisation of its ideal. The ideal of 
the invisible church can find its realisation only in the 
religion of science. 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS; 
A CONTRAST. 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS; A CONTRAST. 

For the sake of convenience, let us distinguish be- 
tween Christ and Jesus. While the name Jesus de- 
notes an historical man, who, as we have good reason 
to believe, lived about two thousand years ago, we 
understand by Christ that ideal figure, which has been 
the main factor in forming the Christian church and 
which is represented in the gospels. 

Whether Jesus was Christ, in other words, whether 
the account of the gospels is historical or mythical, is 
a problem which we do not care to discuss in detail here. 
The problem is of a purely scientific nature and has 
nothing to do with practical religion, except as it may 
open the eyes of those who are as yet under the spell 
of the paganism which still prevails in our churches.* 
It is quite immaterial whether or not the accounts of the 



* The problem of Jesus can now be regarded as solved, and the results of 
all the laborious researches into the accounts of the gospels have been 
summed up by H. Holtzmann, Professor of Theology at the University of 
Strassburg i. E., in his Hand-Commentar znm neuen Testament. Professor 
Holtzmann's works are the more valuable as they are the statement, not of a 
Freethinker, but of a Christian and a theologian by profession. They are 
reverent, but scientific and critical. 

Holtzmann's results remain positive. Jesus is, in his opinion, an histori- 
cal person, whose human character and fate can best be traced in Mark, the 
oldest of the gospels. 



78 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

gospel are historical ; yet it is not a matter of indiffer- 
ence whether or not the Christ-ideal is true ; and we 
say that it is true ; and so far as its truth has been rec- 
ognised, the spirit of Christ lives and moves and has 
its being. 

The belief in the miraculous, which existed at the 
time of Christ, quite naturally entered into the gos- 
pels, and we cannot regard it as an absolutely injuri- 
ous element, whose presence ought to be deplored. 
On the contrary, miracles and the belief in miracles 
indicate the power of the Christ-ideal. All great his- 
torical movements are soon surrounded by more or 
less beautiful legends, and these legends frequently 
reflect the meaning of history better than the histori- 
cal facts themselves, for the legends reveal to us, in a 
poetical vision, the thriving power of historical move- 
ments. There we peep, as it were, into the minds of 
mankind ; we see their yearning, aspiring, wondering, 
and we learn their conception of the ideals that move 
in their hearts. Christianity would have been insignifi- 
cant and insipid, if it had not produced such a myth- 
ology as we possess now. There is no fault to be found 
with the mythology, but only with those who misun- 
derstand the part which mythologies play in the evo- 
lution of religious ideas. 

We have to accept the results of science in its in- 
vestigation of the historical pretensions of the gos- 
pels, yet at the same time we insist on the fact that 
Christ is a living presence even to-day, and our whole 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 79 

civilisation is pervaded by his spirit. Christ is the 
key-note of the historical evolution of mankind since 
the second century of the Christian era, and it seems 
improbable that the influence of this ideal will ever 
subside, or that its glory will ever be outshone by a 
greater star to come ; for the Christ-ideal is a tendency, 
rather than a type ; it indicates the direction of moral 
progress, and not a special aim ; it represents an as- 
piration towards perfection, and not a fixed standard. 
Thus, with all moral rigidity, nay, sternness, with all 
definiteness and stability, the Christ-ideal combines 
an extraordinary plasticity ; it is capable of evolution, 
of expansion, of growth. 

Christ is an invisible and superpersonal influence 
in human society, guiding and leading mankind to 
higher aims and a nobler morality. Christ is greater 
than every one of us, and we are Christians in the 
measure that his soul has taken its abode in us. 

The Christ of the gospels, however, who has be- 
come the religious ideal of Christianity, is very different 
from the Christ of the Christians — or, let us rather say, 
of those who call themselves Christians, who worship 
Christ in a truly pagan manner. Those who call them- 
selves after Christ are, upon the whole, the least worthy 
of the name, for, if he came unto his own, his own 
would receive him not. 

The so-called faithful Christians have made them- 
selves a religion little better than that of fetish wor- 
shippers and practice in many respects an ethics exactly 



8o CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

opposite to the injunctions of Christ. Their worship 
consists in adoration and genuflections and other hea- 
thenish rituals, but they violate his commands. They 
believe in the letter of mythological traditions, and 
fail to recognise the spirit of the truth. 

Let us here briefly pass in review some important 
religious issues which present a strong contrast be- 
tween Christ and the so-called Christians. 

* 

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, but those 
who in public life ostentatiously set themselves up as 
Christians bar the way, dim the truth, and impede life. 
They demand a blind belief in confessions of faith and 
other man-made formulas, while they trample under 
foot any one who dares to search for the truth or walk 
in the way of progress. 

Christ is the way, which means, the spirit of evolu- 
tion, of a constant moral perfectionment; but the Chris- 
tians, in name, have become a clog on the feet of man- 
kind, so that they are known as the chief suppressors 
of truth, liberty, and progress. 

Says Christ : 

"Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites as is written, 
• This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far 
from me.' 

" Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines 
the commandments of men. 

"For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the 
tradition of men ! . , . Full well ye reject the commandment of 
God that ye may keep your own tradition." — Mark, vii. 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 8i 

Which is the will of God : the injunctions preached 
by preachers and priests, or the everlasting revelation 
in the book of nature ? The former we have to accept 
on trust j the latter every one can find out for himself 
by experience. The former are inconsistent, varying 
and unreliable; the latter can be investigated and veri- 
fied. The literatures of all nations, including espe- 
cially the scriptures of our religious traditions, have 
been written in order to assist us in deciphering the 
revelations of God as they appear in the immutable 
laws of nature. Let us search the scriptures, and let 
us study the works of our scientists. But always bear 
in mind that truth is God's revelation, be it pronounced 
by Isaiah or Darwin, and not this or that formula, or 
holy writ, or sacred tradition, and, least of all, a qui- 
cunque. 

When certain of the Pharisees said to the disciples 
of Jesus : '< Why do ye that which is not lawful to do 
on the Sabbath days?" Jesus, answering them, said : 

' ' What man shall there be among you, that shall have one 
sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay 
hold on it and lift it out ? 

" How much then is a man better than a sheep ? Wherefore 
it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days. . . . 

' ' The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- 
bath : 

"Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." 

The Christians of the first century abolished the 
Sabbath and introduced Sunday as a sacred day; and 
their Sunday was not a day of rest, but a remembrance 



82 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

of Christ's resurrection. The Christians of our time, 
however, know not how to celebrate the day. Although 
they believe literally in the resurrection, Christ has 
not risen in their souls. 

The name-Christians revive the old pagan notion 
that the Sunday is to be regarded as a dies ater^ an 
ominous day, on which it is not advisable to undertake 
anything. They make of man the slave of Sunday; 
they close places of harmless pleasures and useful in- 
formation, and in such efforts they find a strong sup- 
port by men of evil enterprises, who offer to the people 
more exciting and less innocent amusements. Must 
Christ come again to repeat the question : 

" Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil ? 
to save life or to destroy life ? " 

Is there any one who doubts that museums, good 
theatres,* and libraries furnish recreations which exer- 
cise a strong influence for good upon the development 
of man's mind? They provide a wholesome mental 
food, educating without the toil of study and broaden- 
ing our views. They are not idle pleasures ; they are 
building up and life-saving ; they are, if enjoyed in the 
right spirit, truly religious, and Christ teaches that it 
is right to heal, to help, and to save on the Sabbath. 

Some of the early Christians continued to celebrate 
the Sabbath after the Jewish fashion, and the apostle 
St. Paul suffered them to do so ; yet he insisted vigor- 

*I say ^^ good theatres" on purpose, thinking that vulgar show-pieces 
might be avoided on Sundays as well as on week-days. But a drama, like 
Schiller's " Maria Stuart," is a sermon better than any divine can preach. 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 83 

ously upon liberty in such matters. We read in the 
epistle to the Romans : 

" One man esteemeth one day above another : another esteem- 
eth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own 
mind. 

' ' He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and 
he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." 

In his letter to the Galatians, however, who piously 
abstained from the desecration of the Sabbath, the 
apostle writes : 

" Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 
" I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in 
vain." 

A wrong conception of the Sabbath is an indication 
of paganism ; and wherever paganism prevails the 
spirit of true Christianity bestows its labors in vain. 

Woe to ye hypocrites, who make religion ridicu- 
lous! Woe to ye Sabbatarians, who make of Christian- 
ity a nuisance! Ye are blind leaders of the blind, a dis- 
grace to the holy name which you write upon your altars. 

We do not mean to abolish Sunday, or to deprive 
the laborer of his rest on the seventh day. On the 
contrary, we insist on keeping Sunday as a religious 
and also as a secular holiday. But we object to a 
wrong usage of Sunday, as if it were the Sabbath of 
the Pharisees. We protest against the barbaric regu- 
lations belonging to pre-Christian ages which have 
been given up by all Christian nations with the sole 
exception of the English, who, in the beginning of the 



84 QHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

middle ages dug them out of the misunderstood re- 
ligious traditions of a remote past. 

We want a Sunday, but not such a Pharisaic Sab- 
bath as is foisted upon the nation by modern Phari- 
sees. We want a day of rest, of recreation, of edifica- 
tion, and not that superstitious /czr niente, which means 
a cessation of all wholesome activity. We want a lib- 
eral, a religious, a spiritual, and truly Christian Sun- 
day. 

* * 

Christ never requested his disciples to eradicate 
reason, or to believe anything irrational, or to accept 
any of his doctrines in blind trust. On the contrary, 
he wanted them to examine things, to discriminate 
between the false and the true, and to discern the 
signs of the times. Our senses should be open to in- 
vestigation, and our judgment ought to be sound in 
order to comprehend things. He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear, and he who has thoughts to think, 
let him think. 

How different are Christians ! Christians demand 
blind belief ; they do not want investigation ; they 
have a distrust of sense- information and place no re- 
liance upon reason. 

What in the world shall we rely on, if reason ceases 
to be trustworthy? If the light of reason be extin- 
guished, all our sentiments, our enthusiasm, our aspi- 
rations, avail nothing, for without reason, we grope in 
the dark. Says Kant : 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 85 

"Friends of mankind and of all that is holy to man, accept 
whatever, after a careful and honest inquiry, you regard to be 
most trustworthy, be it facts or rational arguments, but do not 
contest that prerogative of reason, which makes it the highest good 
upon earth, viz., to be the ultimate criterion of truth. Otherwise 
you will be unworthy of your liberty and lose it without fail." 
(Kant, "Was heisst : Sich im Denken orientiren." Edition Har- 
tenstein, Vol. IV, p. 352.) 

Christ abolished prayer in the sense of begging 
God to do our will, for he truly knew that God, unlike 
man, is immutable, and his will cannot be altered by 
supplications. 

Christ makes no supplications, no praise, no glori- 
fications of God ; he demands no genuflection or self- 
humiliation. He does not beg for miracles or excep- 
tions or special favors, and in the most wretched mo- 
ment of his life he remains faithful to this spirit, which 
lives in his prayer, saying: ''Not my, but Thy will 
be done." 

Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount : 

"When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; 
for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. 

" Be not ye therefore like unto them : for your Father knoweth 
what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. 

•'After this manner therefore pray ye : Our Father which art 
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in 
heaven. 

* ' Give us this day our daily bread. 

*• And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 



86 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

'* And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.* 
*' For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father 

will also forgive you : 

' ' But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 

Father forgive your trespasses." 

There is but one prayer for our bodily needs — not 
for our comforts, merely for the needs which, as we 
must not forget, nature supplies out of her wealth only 
when we work for them. There is no prayer for the 
fulfilment of our particular desires, and all the other 
requests are variations of the third prayer, which says, 
" Thy will be done." 

The name-Christians actually do use **vain repeti- 
tions," so that prayer has almost ceased to have the 
sense in which Christ used the word. 

While recognising the error that obtains in the 
Christian's habit of praying, we do not mean to dis- 
courage the Christian when he wants to pray, for prayer 
is the moving of the spirit of Christ in the souls of those 
who know not what Christ is. If their prayer be honest, 
it will help them, it will mature them, it will calm their 
anxieties and make them composed, it will strengthen 
them, it will make them grow and develop out of their 
paganism into the Christianity of Christ. The more 
they grow in their spiritual life, the more will they 
cease to prattle to God in childish talk ; they will learn 
to pray like Christ, until their whole being becomes a 
performance of God's will. 

♦The words, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the Rlory, 
forever. Amen," are a later addition. 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 87 

Any sincere Christian who proposes to himself the 
question, What shall I pray ? in order to pray in the 
spirit of the Lord's prayer, will come to the conclusion 
that to ask for special favors is childish as well as use- 
less. 

Prayer must be made not with a view of altering 
God's will, but our own will. We grant, however, that 
in a certain sense it is true after all that prayer has an 
influence upon God. Prayer affects our attitude to- 
ward God, toward the world, toward our fellow-men, 
and in so far as our attitude is altered, the attitude of 
our surroundings will be altered, too. Whether we 
are impatient and afraid, or calm and self-possessed, 
makes a great difference, and the whole situation in 
which we are may change when we pass from one con- 
dition into the other. The facts which we face, the 
dangers which we confront, the duties which we have 
to perform, assume another countenance j and this 
change may and very frequently will be the most de- 
cisive factor in the final result of our actions. 

Take, for instance, our knowledge of nature. The 
laws of nature have remained the same ; but while the 
savage trembles before the forces of nature, we utilise 
them to our advantage. The same electricity which 
was so formidable to our ancestors is to us beneficent. 
Truly, there is no change in the laws of nature, but a 
change in our own attitude changes the situation in 
such a way that it amounts to a most radical change of 
nature itself. 



88 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

If knowledge can bring about such wonderful 
changes, should not the good-will of a religious atti- 
tude have the power to reform, to bless, and to save ? 

* 
* * 

Should prayer mean supplication, it would be bet- 
ter that all prayer ceased. And, indeed, the Lord's 
prayer contains the injunction that we must cease to 
ask God to do our will. 

While Christ's prayer is an act of self-discipline 
which attunes our will to the will of God, the Christian's 
prayer is, as a rule, a beggar's supplication, which tries 
to work miracles. The Christian's prayer may be more 
refined, but it is actually of the same nature as the 
medicine-man's incantation, which is supposed to take 
effect by some mysterious telepathy. 

The great Konigsberger philosopher uses the word 
*• prayer," not in Christ's sense, but in the sense in 
which it is used by the name-Christians. He says : 

' ' To expect of prayer other than natural effects is foolish and 
needs no explicit refutation. We can only ask, Is not prayer to be 
retained for the sake of its natural effects ? Among the natural 
effects we count that the dark and confused ideas present in the 
soul are either clarified through prayer, or that they receive a 
higher degree of intensity ; that the motives of virtue receive a 
greater efficacy, etc, etc. 

' ' We have to say that prayer can, for the reasons adduced, 
be recommended only subjectively, for he who can in another way 
attain to the effects for which prayer is recommended will not be 
in need of it. 

' 'A man may think, ' If I pray to God it can hurt me in no 



CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 8g 

wise ; for should he not exist, very well ! in that case I have done 
too much of a good thing ; but if he does exist, it will help me. ' This 
Prosopopbia (face-making) is hypocrisy, for we have to presuppose 
in prayer that he who prays is firmly convinced that God exists. 

' ' The consequence of this is that he who has made great 
moral progress ceases to pray, for honesty is one of his principal 
maxims. And further, that those whom one surprises in prayer 
are ashamed of themselves. 

"In public sermons before the public, prayer must be re- 
tained, because it can be rhetorically of great effect, and can make 
a great impression. Moreover, in sermons before the people one 
has to appeal to their sensuality and must, as much as possible, 
stoop down to them." 

It is especially noteworthy that Kant says ''he who 
has made great moral progress ceases to pray "; and 
he adds the curious observation ''that those whom one 
surprises in prayer are ashamed of themselves." 

The Lord's prayer is no prayer in the common sense 
of the word. It is not an incantation that exercises 
a supernatural influence through "vain repetitions." 
The Lord's prayer must be lived, rather than spoken. 
We need not pray it, if we but live it. Its spirit must be- 
come part of our soul, so that our whole life becomes an 
exemplification of the sentiment, "Thy will be done." 

' ' Further, psychology teaches that very often the exposition 
of an idea, weakens the efficacy it possessed, while still whole and 
entire, although dark and undeveloped. 

"And, finally, there is hypocrisy in prayer ; for the man who 
either prays audibly, or who resolves his ideas internally in words, 
regards the Deity as something that can be grasped by the senses, 
while it is only a principle which his reason urges him to assume. 



90 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 

While Christ's prayer means resignation to the will 
of God, the Christian's prayer is a superstitious trust in 
miracles, in the hope that they will be performed for 
his advantage. Christ's prayer is an effort to change 
our own will, not God's will ; it is a self-exhortation 
which helps us to be satisfied with God's will and to 
perform our duties. 

These are striking differences between Christ and 
Christians, between Christ's faith and the Christian's 
faith, between Christ's prayer and the Christian's 
prayer, between Christ's religion and ecclesiasticism. 
Christ is a savior, a liberator, a reformer; the typical 
Christian is a stumbling-block, and a cause of an- 
noyance. 

There is a wonderful saving power in the words of 
Christ, but the name-Christians do not know it. They 
walk in darkness and are not even aware of it them- 
selves. They believe themselves to be saints, and are 
in fact the spiritual successors of the scribes and 
Pharisees. 

If ever the name of Christ be dimmed in its glory, 
it will be done by the vices of his followers in name, 
and the freethinker will have to be called upon to re- 
store the lost halo of the greatest reformer and the 
staunchest defender of free thought and liberty. 

The religion of science is not and cannot be the 
Christianity of those who call themselves orthodox 
Christians, but it is and will remain the Christianity of 
Christ. 



THE CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS 
SPIRIT. 



THE CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS 
SPIRIT. 

The old traditional religions take, as it were, a bee- 
line in advancing man to the benefits and blessings of 
truth. They make it possible for man to feel the truth 
without knowing it ; the truth is given him in a mix- 
ture with mythology, so that even minds incapable of 
scientific inquiry can possess and apply it in practical 
life. 

Religion will naturally appear to neophytes who 
have not entered into its sanctissimum and have never 
had a glimpse of its esoteric spirit as a mystery; and to 
those, who, blind to its truth, see its mythology only 
as a medley of human fraud and folly. 

In the assurance of devout piety there is a wisdom 
that is not discarded by the religion of science. We 
can have, and we should have, a resolute confidence 
in the unbreakable and unbroken laws of existence. 
We can have, and we should have, an intimate and 
truly personal relation to that All-being in which, 
through which, and to which we live. This All-being 
in its wonderful harmony of law surrounds and per- 
vades our entire existence. We cannot withdraw our- 



94 CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 

selves from its influence, and, truly, it is grand and 
sublime and perfect beyond description. It is the 
source of all blessings, and it encompasses us with a 
beneficence that can be compared only to a father's 
love. It is greater than a father's love ; and is greater 
than any particular thing we know of, for it comprises 
all things, and a father's love is only one brilliant ray 
of its sunshine. 

When we regard our own being as a revelation of 
the All-being, so that our very self is felt to be an in- 
carnation of nature's divinity, and that our will is 
identified with God's will, we shall learn to look upon 
the troubles and anxieties of life with quietude. A 
heavenly rest will overspread all our being. Whether 
we struggle and conquer or stumble and fall, whether 
we are in joy or in sorrow, whether we live or die, we 
know that it is a greater one than ourselves who suf- 
fers and struggles and has his being in us and in our 
aspirations, and his greatness sanctifies the yearnings 
of our heart and consecrates even the trivialities of 
life. 

We do not exist for enjoyment, for truly pure en- 
joyment is an impossibility. We live to perform work. 
We have a mission. There are duties imposed upon us. 

And we can gain satisfaction only by performing 
our work, by complying with our mission, by attend- 
ing to our duties. 

There is no genuine happiness, unless it be the 
rapture of the God moving in us. 



CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 93 

When we consider the letter in which truth is ex- 
pressed, we find an unfathomable abyss between the 
religion of science and the dogmatic religions of the 
established churches. It is the abyss that separates 
mythology from truth, paganism from sound science, 
idolatry from self-reliance, superstition from religion, 
bigotry from righteousness. 

When we consider the spirit in which the truth is 
felt, we find that the spirit is the same in the old his 
torical religions as in the religion of science. 

The spirit of almost all the words of the great 
teachers of mankind is the same as that which must 
animate the religion of science, and the most beauti- 
ful, the profoundest, and sublimest of all sayings are 
those spoken by the great Master of Galilee. 

The spirit of religion is true and noble, but dog- 
matism affects, like a deadly poison, the religions of 
mankind. How many of the keenest and most scien- 
tific thinkers have been, and are still, through its in- 
fluence, estranged from the church! Dogmatism warps 
the sentiments of men and takes away the natural charm 
that surrounds the holiest enthusiasm. Nevertheless, 
even in orthodox churchmen the light of true religion 
sometimes shines undimmed. 

One of the founders of Christian dogmatism is St. 
Augustine. But he is not so narrow as are his follow- 
ers. Although he som.etimes appears narrow, his con- 
ception of Christianity is broad, so that he might call 
it the cosmic religion, the religion of truth, or that re- 



96 CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 

ligion which the scientist will find to be founded in the 
constitution of the universe. Christianity is to him only 
a name which was recently given to the cosmic religion 
of universal truth. He says : 

'•The very same thing which now is called Christianity ex- 
isted among the ancients and was not absent in the beginning of 
mankind until Christ himself appeared in the flesh, whence the 
true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian. " 
(Retr. I. 13.)* 

We are, furthermore, strangely impressed with the 
remarkable agreement that obtains, not in the letter, 
but in the spirit, between the teachings of the religion 
of science and those of Johannes Tauler. 

The quotation of a few short passages will suffice 
to set this agreement in a clear light. 

The chapter which is to be considered as the quin- 
tessence of all his preaching, •* containing the doctrines 
of Tauler in three points, discusses the subject, *'how 
we shall perfectly go out of ourselves and enter God." 

It must be observed that Tauler's terminology is 
different from ours. While ** nature," in the termi- 
nology of science, is identical with reality, including 
all that exists, also the laws of nature and the reality 
of our spiritual being, it means to Tauler only the 
lower desires of man and that which is apt to elicit 
them. ** Nature" means to Tauler what **Sansara" 
means to the Buddhist. It is the sham of our indi- 

♦ Ipse res qua nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos nee 
defuit ab initio generis humani, quousque ipse Christus veniret in carne, unde 
vera religio quce jam erat, ccepit appellari Christiana. 



CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 97 

vidual existence, the delusion of egotism, and the Van- 
ity Fair of our transient pleasures. 
Says Tauler* : 

' ' We now propose three points which contain briefly all that 
on which we have expatiated in this book. 

"The first point is this : He who wants to make progress in 
his sanctification, to become a real and aflSrmed friend of God, to 
love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind, 
and his neighbor as himself, and to truly feel God's presence in 
his interior, in his heart, all earthly love of and inclination toward 
anything that is not God must be slain and must remain dead." 

We have to remark that there may be a difference 
of opinion as to what God is and what God is not. For 
instance, the duties of family life, energetic enterprise 
in business, admiration of art may have appeared, if 
not to Tauler, but to any average clergyman of Tau- 
ler's time, as ungodly. The religion of science finds 
God in all things. The religion of science has over- 
come the error of negativism and has freed us from the 
shackels of asceticism. But this difference of view as 
to the nature of God should not prevent us from seeing 
the concurrence in principles. 

Tauler continues : 

•' The second point demands that if we wish here in time, and 
there in eternity, to attain to the cognition of the highest truth, 
we must in all things rid ourselves of all pleasures of the spirit, in 
which the spirit seeks and means itself. It is so common, alas ! 

* Medulla Anima, Chap. XXVI in Surius's Latin edition, Chap. XXV in 
the German edition, Chap. XXXIX in Cassender's modern translation. The 
quotations above are translated from the Cassender edition (Prague, 1872, 2d 
ed., F. Tempsky). 



98 CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 

that having abandoned all the externalities of life, the pleasure of 
the spirit in us begins to awake. The spirit is pleased with certain 
fancies and certain ways which it loves as its alter ego, which it 
seeks and aims at ; and thus the spirit is captivated in these things 
and shut out from the true light so that the latter cannot give any 
enlightenment. The self-loving lust of the spirit to which the 
spirit loves to surrender itself hinders and dims the rays of divine 
truth. The exercises, whatever they may be, contemplation, 
thought, activity, intuition, etc., are not used as means for a pure 
seeking God, willing God, and meaning God. The spirit rather 
seeks in them its own self. Their purpose is the ego and not 
God." 

Is this passage not true of all those arguments 
which are brought forth in favor of an individual im- 
mortality of the ego ? How often is it claimed that 
any other immortality but the ego-immortality is un- 
satisfactory. Truly, the immortality of the soul as 
taught by science must be unsatisfactory to every one 
whose religion has not as yet reached the height and 
purity of Tauler' s doctrines. Those who find satisfac- 
tion only if they have an ego-immortality, do not seek 
God in religion, but themselves. 

Tauler's second point finds further explanation : 

"In this state (of seeking God, willing God, and meaning God) 
nature must slaughter and sacrifice its pleasure ; its seeking self 
must die entirely. . . . This means in the proper sense of the word, 
to die off to one's self. It is a real eniwerden (a becoming nothing), 
an annihilation, a losing, a resignation. Nothing remains but God ; 
nothing is retained but He ; there is no rest but in Him ; so 
that God, in and with man, can do His will, so that God alone be 
willing, working, illumining, and moving in man, man being noth- 



CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 99 

ing of his own accord, neither willing, nor working, nor illumining, 
nay, even not existing except as that which God is in him ; so that 
man is nothing at all in his ways, works, and objects ; i. e , in all 
things man should seek himself neither in time nor in eternity." 

"The third point of the whole doctrine is this : When man 
has freed himself externally and internally of any and all pre- 
tensions, when he has reached the state, in the way we have indi- 
cated, of standing upon his nothingness, then alone can he freely 
enter into the highest and simplest good — into God. His entrance 
however, must be thorough and not in part. . . . O, what bliss lies 
in such moments ! . . , . One such entrance into God is sublimer 
and more excellent than many other and often so-called great ex- 
ercises and works outside of it. In it alone is real divine life and 
true peace." 

Tauler took Christianity seriously and extracted its 
quintessence. Let us take Tauler seriously, and we 
come to an agreement with Christianity. 

Cling to the meaning of your mythology, O ye faith- 
ful ; and you will naturally walk on the right path! 

There is this constant objection made, '' If the reli- 
gious doctrines are not literally true, if God is not 
truly a person, if my ego is a mere illusion, if heaven 
and hell are conditions of our being and not places 
somewhere in space, what do I care for the meaning 
of these parables ? " 

We answer : The substance is better than the al- 
legory, the meaning is deeper than the mythology, 
truth is greater than fiction. 

He who does not see that the substance is better 
than the allegory, the meaning deeper than the myth- 
ology, and truth greater than fiction, had better cling 



loo CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT. 

to the allegory, mythology, and fiction, lest he lose the 
substance, the meaning, and the truth. His mind is 
not as yet sufficiently matured to receive the truth. 

We cannot feed the babes with meat, we must give 
them milk. 

* * 

The main secret of the innumerable blessings and 

benefits which can be derived from religion lies in this : 
that by learning how to live we learn to understand the 
meaning of the world. The mystery of being is revealed 
only to the man who actually lives a moral life. 

Religion on the one hand demands a surrender of 
all egotistic desires, it teaches us the right spirit in 
which we must regulate our conduct ; and on the other 
hand religion gradually accustoms us to viewing life 
from the higher standpoint of the divinity of nature. 
We see that which is transient as transient and iden- 
tify our being with that which is eternal. And the air 
we breathe on the heights to which religion raises us 
is bracing, refreshing, and healthy. 

The religion of science is not a substitute for the 
dogmatic and mythological religions of our churches. 
On the contrary, the church-religions are a substitute 
for the religion of science ; they are a mere temporary 
expedient proposing mythologies so long as the truth 
is not as yet forthcoming. When that which is perfect 
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 
The mythology is of a passing value but the truth will 
abide. 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

The Religion of Science has been severely criticised 
in a series of articles that appeared in the Freethought 
Magazine and were afterwards republished in pam- 
phlet-form under the title ^^ Religion and Science ^ the 
Reconciliation Mania of Dr. Paul Carus of The Open 
Court Analysed and Refuted by Corvinus." 

Identifying the negativism of his peculiar free- 
thought with Science, and Religion with superstition, 
Corvinus denounces every attempt at reconciliation 
between Religion and Science, and condemns my ex- 
positions of a religion that would be in accord with 
Science as a *' conglomeration of self-contradictory 
ideas," which display ''inconsistency" and ''ambigu- 
ity." He calls me a "freethinker in disguise," and 
contrasts such passages in which I appear as "vir- 
tually a freethinker" with others in which I maintain 
the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. 

There are plenty of misrepresentations in Corvi- 
nus's criticism, but they are apparently involuntary. 
It is true that I use many old words, such as Religion, 
God, soul, and immortality, in a new sense, but I 



I04 IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

have always been careful to explain what I mean. 
Had I ever tried to dodge the truth, or leave people 
in doubt as to my opinions, there would be some jus- 
tice in the accusations of Corvinus. The fact is that 
my definitions are new mainly because they are more 
definite than those handed down to us by tradition. 

My method of reconciliation consists in showing the 
dogmatic believer a way out of his narrowness. I 
undertake to instruct him in the meaning of his reli- 
gion, pointing out how he can decipher the symbols of 
his creed and transfigure them into exact truth. At 
the same time I give to the freethinker the key which 
will unlock the mysteries of traditional religion, and 
exhibit the significance of their peculiar forms, so full 
of beauty and comfort to the believer, and so grotesque 
to the uninitiated. 

That Corvinus judges rashly of the work which I 
do, is, in my opinion, simply due to the fact that he 
never felt the need of a reconciliation of religion with 
science, and science with religion. He knows neither 
the real character of the religious people of to-day, 
nor does he understand the historical import of reli- 
gion. He only knows the little circle of his own so- 
ciety, in which freethought prevails, and he has prob- 
ably never investigated the evolution of moral ideals, 
which, without religion, would never have been dis- 
seminated or enthusiastically received among the 
masses of mankind. Morality without religion, and of 
course we mean here religion in the highest sense of 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 105 

the word, would have simply been fear of the police, 
and nothing more. 

Corvinus has misunderstood the most important 
side of my position. He sees the negations alone of 
my philosophy, which ally me so strongly with the 
freethinker party, but not its affirmations, and I would 
say, that if to be a freethinker means to be purely 
negative and to reject wholesale everything that has 
been established by the millennial evolution of re- 
ligion, I am not a freethinker, but I am an orthodox 
among the orthodox ; nay, an arch-orthodox, for while 
the old-fashioned orthodoxy claims to be a system of 
belief, the new orthodoxy which is implied in the Re- 
ligion of Science claims to be based on a firmer founda- 
tion than mere belief.* It is built upon evidence which 
can be rejected only by those who are unable to com- 
prehend the import of facts. 

To Corvinus, all religions, and especially Christian- 
ity, are errors and unmitigated nonsense, while I see 
in them the development of that most important side 
of man's nature, which determines the character of his 
life. In my opinion, the very idea of ''a system of 
pure ethics " is unscientific. Ethics is always the ex- 
pression of a world-conception. Ever}^ religion and 
every philosophy has its own ethics. Cut ethics loose 
from its basis, and it remains an arbitrary system of 
rules without either rats on d^etre or authority. The 

*See the author's article, "The New Orthodoxy," a paper read before 
the Pan-American Congress of Religion and Education, Toronto, 1895 ; pub- 
lished in The Mo7iist, Vol. VI., No. i, pp. gi-g8. 



io6 IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

raison d'etre of moral commandments is the most es- 
sential part of ethics ; it is the root from which moral- 
ity springs, and whatever this raison d^etre be, it is the 
religion of the man who owns it. If there are men 
who have no other raison d'etre for moral conduct than 
their own personal welfare, I would say that their re- 
ligion consists in the attainment of happiness. If they 
recognise no authority to which they bow save their 
own pleasure or displeasure, their God is Self. Now, 
it has been maintained by some freethinkers that the 
very nature of freethought consists in this unshackled 
freedom, and I would say that if their conception is 
truly legitimate freethought, I am no freethinker, for I 
believe, nay, I know, that there is a power in this world 
which we have to recognise as the norm of truth and 
the standard of right conduct ; and, indeed, there are 
conditions in which our personal happiness may seri- 
ously come into conflict with our duties. In this sense 
I uphold the idea of God as being a supreme authority 
for moral conduct, the presence of which in life can 
only be denied by men whose opposition to the false 
dogmatism of the traditional religions leads them to 
deny also their truth, which is their very essence, and 
the cause of their continued existence. 

Religion, as it originates among the various nations 
of the world, is not the product of systematised inves- 
tigation, but of race-experience. It is natural that 
truths of great importance were, long before a scien- 
tific investigation could explain their nature, invented 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 107 

by instinct. Thus the Egyptians invented imple- 
ments, the use of which is based on laws utterly un- 
intelligible in those days. In the same way moral 
truths were proclaimed by the prophets, who felt their 
significance without being able to explain them by a 
philosophical argumentation, and it is to the enormous 
practical importance of these truths that they owe 
their survival. To show justice and mercy to enemies 
appears at first sight foolish, but experience has taught 
that the men who insisted on this principle were right, 
and the belief in their divine mission became by and 
by established. The prophets of almost all nations 
were persecuted, but their doctrines survived, and led 
naturally enough to the foundation of institutions such 
as the synagogue of the Jews, the church of the Chris- 
tians, the sangha of the Buddhists. 

The religious conception which it is my life-work 
to uphold, is simple enough, yet I find that Corvinus 
has radically misunderstood its main significance, 
without which all my writing would indeed be a mere 
quibbling of words and an ambiguous display of old 
phrases, not in a new sense, but without any sense. 

One instance will be sufficient to point out the mis- 
conception of Corvinus. Corvinus declares that God 
is with me '^only an idea," implying that it is no re- 
ality. He says (p. 31): 

" If God is being defined simply as abstract thought, an idea, 
as something existing only in imagination and not in reality, it is 
meaningless to say, ' Science is a revelation of God.' " 



io8 IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

And he adds : 

"Science is the achievement of man and nothing else." 

In opposition to his statement I say that the idea 
of God is an abstract thought, but God himself is a 
reality. There is no abstract thought but it is in- 
vented to describe a reality.* If the term ''God" did 
not describe an actual reality, it would be meaningless 
to speak of ''Science as a revelation of God. '^ I grant 
that Science is "the achievement of man," but that is 
one side only of the truth. Far from being "the 
achievement of man and nothing else,'*'' Science is in its 
very essence superhuman. Man cannot invent math- 
ematics ; he must discover its theorems. He cannot 
make the laws of nature ; he must describe them. He 
cannot establish facts ; he must investigate, and can 
only determine the truth. Nor can he set up a code 
of morals, but he must adapt himself to the eternal 
moral law which is the condition of human society and 
the factor that shapes the human of man. 

Here is the point where Corvinus radically differs 
from my position. He says, quoting a misunderstood 
passage from Haeckel : 

" ' Constantly to speak of the moral laws of nature proves 
blindness to the undeniable facts of human and natural history.' " 

Corvinus adds : 

"All moral laws from their beginning in the dim past among 

*An apparent exception to this rule is the conception of the irrational in 
mathematics. The irrational is a symbol representing a function which can- 
not be performed. The root-extraction of ( — i) is as impossible as the squar- 
ing of the circle. 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 109. 

our rude, savage-like predecessors up to the noblest conceptions of 
modern ethics, were conceived, proposed, and consequently estab- 
lished by man," 

Corvinus says that *' necessity gave birth to these 
moral laws," meaning probably by necessity *<the 
needs of man." I accept his reply, and would say 
that the needs of man indicate the presence of a higher 
necessity, viz., of that necessity which we trace in the 
harmony of natural laws and in the peculiarly compli 
cated simplicity of mathematics. This higher neces- 
sity is the ultimate raison d'etre of the moral law, and 
it is a characteristic feature of that omnipotent pres- 
ence which we can trace everywhere. Intrinsic neces- 
sity means eternality, immutability, stern and inflexible 
authority — in a word, it means God. 

Corvinus confounds two things : moral injunctions 
and the natural law of morality. Moral injunctions 
are proposed and established by man in his anxiety to 
adapt himself to the moral law, exactly as an architect 
may write down the rules for building bridges so that 
according to the material which he uses the law of 
gravitation shall not be Infringed upon. If the archi- 
tect's rules are in conformity with the natural condi- 
tions, such as scientists formulate in what is called 
laws of nature, he will be able to build boldly and 
securely. And if the laws of legislators are based upon 
a correct conception of the moral law of nature, the 
nations who adopt them will prosper and progress. 

It appears that, according to Corvinus, the moral 



no IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

law of nature is a nonentity, while the injunctions of 
law-givers are all that can be called a moral law. The 
fact is just the reverse. The moral law of nature is 
the eternal abiding reality, while the laws and injunc- 
tions of man are only its transitory and more or less 
imperfect expressions. The moral law of nature alone 
partakes of that feature which in all religions is attrib- 
uted to God. It is eternal, it is omnipresent, it is ir- 
refragable. Certainly the moral law is not a concrete 
object, not an individual fact, not a personal being, 
but for that reason it is not a nonentity. It cannot be 
seen with the eye, or heard with the ear, or tasted with 
the tongue, or touched with the hands. It is one of 
those higher realities which can only be perceived by 
the mind. The senses are Insufficient to encompass 
it, but any normal mind can grasp It. 

There was in the Middle Ages a philosophical party 
called the Nominalists, who denied the objective ex- 
istence of ideas, declaring ideas to be mere names 
without any corresponding reality. Their adversaries, 
called the Realists, believed in the reality of ideas. 
And while the nomlnalistic philosophy was rejected, 
it began to flourish again and found its mightiest ex- 
pression in the transcendental idealism of the great 
sage of Konlgsberg. On this line of thought the whole 
universe becomes intrinsically Incomprehensible, end- 
ing at last in agnosticism. In which Nominalism reaches 
its final reductio ad absurdum. 

Corvinus is apparently a nominalist. Ideas are to 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. iii 

him mere ideas, i. e., subjective inventions without 
objective reality ; and science, that most methodical 
system of ideas, is not a revelation of objective truth, 
but ''the achievement of man and nothing else." It 
is, accordingly, in the same predicament as the names 
of the nominalists, and he who studies science is like 
Hamlet in one of his erratic moods reading, as he 
says, ''Words, words, words." Science would be mere 
words without any objective significance. 

Now I will not quarrel with Corvinus about names. 
He has an inherited objection to the very word "God. " 
I v/ill not now apply the name God to that peculiar pres- 
ence of superhuman reality which the various sciences 
reveal to us in parts, but I insist on its being a reality; 
indeed, I maintain that it is the most real reality in 
the world. We may call it cosmic order, or law {Ge- 
setzmdssigkeit), or necessity, or the eternal, or the im- 
mutable, or the omnipresent, the absolute, or the pro- 
totype of mind, or the standard of rationality, or the 
universal Logos, or the authority of conduct. But it 
exists, in undeniable objectivity. We cannot mould it 
or shape it, but, on the contrary, we are the products 
of its handiwork. Every arithmetical formula, every 
law of nature, every truth, is a partial revelation of 
its character, and there is nothing in the infinite uni- 
verse but is swayed by its influence. It encompasses 
the motions of the infinitesimal atoms and of the 
grandest suns ; it is the logic of man's reason and the 
nobility of man's moral aspirations. 



112 IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

It is true that I deny the existence of an individual 
God. In this sense I am an outspoken atheist. Never- 
theless, I declare most emphatically that God is a real- 
ity, and indeed, God is a super-individual reality. In 
Corvinus's opinion this is a flat contradiction and he 
has no other explanation of it than by considering 
it as a tergiversation. He puts it down as a mania 
through which I try to reconcile the errors of the past 
with the truths of modern times. By truths of mod- 
ern times he understands negations of all and any posi- 
tive issues in religion, so that as soon as I attempt to 
formulate freethought in positive terms, which is tan- 
tamount to recognising the truth in our traditions, he 
decries me for pandering to popular superstitions. 

In my opinion freethought has been barren because 
of its negativism and it is now behind the times be- 
cause it has failed to come out with positive issues, and 
now that The Open Court Publishing Co. is propos- 
ing a constructive freethought, its work is suspected, 
criticised, and rejected by freethinkers. In spite of the 
negations of Corvinus, I insist that the reality of God 
is an undeniable fact, scientifically provable by unfail- 
ing evidence. It can be established so surely that Cor- 
vinus, as soon as he grasps the meaning of the idea, 
would say that it is a truism. 

Philosophical materialism has so strongly affected 
our ideas that the average mind is incapable of be- 
lieving in immaterial realities. First, the immaterial 
realities of natural laws were represented as personal 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 113 

beings, then as metaphysical essences, and nov/ since 
we know that metaphysicism is untenable their very 
existence is denied, and, being recognised as immate- 
rial, they are declared to be unreal. But the objective 
reality of form and the laws of form is exactly the truth 
which we must learn to appreciate. 

That which the senses do not perceive, but is dis- 
cernible by the mind, is not non-existent but possesses 
a higher kind of existence. It constitutes the unity of 
the universe and the harmony of its order. Without 
it, the world would not be a cosmos but an incoherent 
chaos ; nature would be matter in motion, without any 
regularity of mechanical adjustment and the system of 
thought-forms which constitutes the superiority of the 
human mind would never have developed. Without 
it. Science would be mere verbiage. Religion meaning- 
less, and ethics an impossibility. 

The new philosophy which I represent — call it 
Monism, or the New Positivism (for it differs from 
Comtean Positivism), or the Philosophy of Science, or 
the New Realism — insists on the reality of form and of 
relations, and on the significance of ideas. The soul of 
man is not in his blood but in his mind. He is not a 
mere heap of atoms. He consists of ideas. His ex- 
istence is not purely material. It is also, and princi- 
pally, spiritual. We grant that there is no ego-soul. 
There is as little a metaphysical thing-in-itself of man 
as there is a thing-in-itself of a watch, or of a tree, or 
of a natural law. But nevertheless, just as much as 



114 IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER, 

that combination which makes of a spring, cogs and 
wheels, an instrument called a watch, is not a non- 
entity but a reality, in the same way man's soul in 
spite of the non-existence of a metaphysical ego-soul 
is not a nonentity but a reality ; and the mould into 
which we have been cast is that divinity of the world 
which was at the beginning and will remain for ever 
and aye. 

If there is anything that deserves the name of God- 
head, it is this peculiar supersensible Reality, the vari- 
ous aspects of which are revealed in glimpses that we 
receive in Religion, in Ethics, and in Science. For 
here alone the attributes of divinity are found, viz., 
omnipresence and universality, immutability and eter- 
nity, intrinsic necessity and irrefragability. It is one 
and the same in all its various revelations, in mathe- 
matical theorems and in ethical injunctions. There is 
no wisdom, but it is a comprehension of its truth. 
There is no virtue, but it is a compliance with its dis- 
pensations. There is no genuine piety, but it is a de- 
votion to its beauty and sovereignty. If there are 
gods of any kind, it is the God of gods, and if the 
word supernatural has any sense, here is it applicable ; 
for here we have the conditions for all possible worlds, 
and it would remain such as it is, even if nature did not 
exist. The simplest formulas of arithmetic as well 
as the noblest moral laws, which constitute the superi- 
ority of love over hate and of compassion over ferocity, 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 115 

hold good for this actual world of ours not less than for 
any possible world. 

Thus we learn that if God is not wise like a sage, 
he is infinitely more than wise ; he is that which con- 
stitutes the essence of all wisdom. God is not good 
like a well-meaning man ; he is more than a philan- 
thropist. God is the measure of goodness and the 
moral law of life. 

When Corvinus speaks of God he means the God- 
conception of average Christianity. But we can assure 
him that the masses are not responsible for the religion 
which they espouse, while many leaders in the churches 
are far from believing in an individual God. They 
may not be clear as to the nature of God. They be- 
lieve in Him without comprehending his Being ; but 
I maintain that upon the whole they have an aspiration 
toward a higher conception and that in the long run of 
the historical evolution of mankind they will more and 
more accept the idea of God as the Religion of Sci- 
ence conceives it now. They try to conceive the idea 
of God as a truly superpersonal God, and at the same 
time think of him still as an individual being, a huge 
world-ego. But I venture to say that this combination 
is self-contradictory. If such an individual God, a 
kind of world-ego, a distinct and single being, existed, 
if this God were a being who had been the creator of 
the universe and is now its governor and supreme 
ruler, I would say that that superpersonal Divinity, 
the revelation which we find in science, and the es- 



ii6 IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 

sence of which is that indescribable presence of law 
and cosmic order, must be considered superior to him. 

Suppose we call an individual God, after the pre- 
cedent of the gnostics, ^'Demiurge" or world-archi- 
tect and represent him, not as the prototype of all 
personality, but as an actual person like ourselves, only 
infinitely greater. Now, suppose that it was he who 
made the world as a watchmaker makes a watch, that 
he regulates it as we wind and set our watches, and 
that he owns and rules it, and keeps it in order. Must 
we not grant at once that the Demiurge, though in- 
finitely greater than man, would not be the supreme 
Reality ? He would have to obey those supernatural 
laws of nature which constitute their intrinsic neces- 
sity. He would not be the ultimate ground of moral- 
ity and truth. There is a higher authority above him. 
And this higher and highest authority is the God of 
the Religion of Science, who alone is worthy of the 
name of God. The God of the Religion of Science is 
still the God of the Demiurge. The Demiurge could 
have created the world only by complying with the 
eternal and unalterable laws of being to which he 
would be not less subject than all his creatures. 

Taking this ground, we say that the God of the 
Religion of Science alone is God, and not the Demi- 
urge in whom a great number of the Christians of to- 
day still believe. The Demiurge is a mythical figure, 
and belief in him is true paganism. Monotheism in 
this sense is only a polytheism which has reduced the 



IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER, 117 

number of its gods to one single god-being. The God 
whom the Religion of Science proclaims is not a sin- 
gle God-Being, but it is the one, the sole, the self- 
consistent, universal sameness of divinity that is the 
all-pervading condition of any possible world as a cos- 
mic universe. 

The God whom the Religion of Science proclaims 
is not a new God, but it is the old God proclaimed 
by every genuine prophet, among the Jews and also 
among the Gentiles, only purified of its paganism. 

The Philosophy of Science is not an absolutely new 
philosophy, but only a more distinct formulation of 
the principles which have long been practised among 
scientists. In the same way, the Religion of Science 
is not a radically new religion, but a religious reform 
which, according to the needs of the time, matures 
the old religions and opens a vista into the future, in 
which the most radical freethought is reconciled with 
the most rigorous orthodoxy. And this is not done by 
artificial phrases or by tergiversation, but by fusing 
religion in the furnace of science, and by sifting our 
religious traditions in the sieve of critique. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Achromatic, reality as, 58. 

Adoration, its pagan character, 70. 

Affliction, comfort in, 3 ; its benefits, 
14. 

Aim of life, 3, 42. 

Alchemists not to be despised, 66. 

All-being, its paternity and perfec- 
tion, 94. 

Allegory adapted to certain ages and 
states, 71, 99. 

Analogies useful in scientific formu- 
lations, 67. 

Animism, 58. 

Annihilation of the soul, 55. 

Anthropotheism, 22, 23. 

Arch-orthodox, 105. 

Artist, function of, 70. 

Asceticism, 30, 97. 

Astrologers not to be despised, 66. 

Atheism, its definition, 22. 

Augustine, St., cited, 96; his breadth 
of conception, 95. 

Authority for conduct, 21, 23, 27; its 
basis, 12, 109, III. 

Being, a revelation of All-being, 74. 
Blind faith, 9. 
Book, a simile of man, 49. 
Buddha, in invisible church, v. 
Buddhistic ethics, 29. 

Catholic religion, the true, 10. 

Catholicity of the Religion of Sci- 
ence, iv, 93. 

Ceremonies, according to Religion of 
Science, 11. 

Changes brought about by knowl- 
edge, 93. 



Christ, a living presence to-day, 84; 
an ideal figure, 77; cited, 80, 85; 
distinguished from Jesus, y-j; his 
spirit, 78; in invisible church, v; 
his teaching on Sabbath question, 
81; 82; not an enemy of reason, 84; 
the key-note of historical evolution, 
79 ; the spirit of evolution, 80. 

Christ-ideal, a tendency, 79; its im- 
portance, 78. 

Christian departure from Christ- 
ideal, 79; ethics, 29, 79; representa- 
tion of continuance of soul-life, 48, 

Christianity, called cosmic religion 
by Augustine, 95, 96; injured by 
Sabbatarians, 83 ; its ideal, 73 ; not 
free from idolatry, 70; the best of 
religions, 70. 

Christians contrasted with Christ, 
80, 90. 

Church, the invisible, 73. 

Civilisation, its moral effect, 38; per- 
vaded by the spirit of Christ, 79. 

Comfort in affliction, 3. 

Confucius, in invisible church, v. 

Convictions, result of experience, 47. 

Corvinus, 103. 

Cosmic religion identified by Augus- 
tine with Christianity, 95, 96. 

Creation in image of God, 51. 

Creed contrasted with faith, 9; its 
definition, 8. 

Day of rest desirable, 84. 

Deism, its definition, 23. 

Demiurge, 116. 

Disposition, inherited, 47. 

Divinity, of man, 51 ; in the universe, 



INDEX. 



23 ; of nature, the standpoint of re- 
ligion, 100. 

Doctrines of Religion of Science, 10, 
II. 

Dogma, its definition, 8; rejected by 
Religion of Science, 10. 

Dogmatic religions, prophesies of re- 
ligion of truth, 65 ; under the spell 
of paganism, 70. 

Dogmatism, its evils, 95. 

Duty arises from every truth, 32; 
ethics of, 27; implied in the con- 
ception of soul, 56. 

Ecclesiasticism not Christ's religion, 
90. 

Ego, an illusion, 99; its contents 
changeable, 40; its definition, 39. 

Ego-soul not the real soul, 41, 98 ; ob- 
jection to its abandonment, 55. 

Eleusinian mysteries, their represen- 
tation of immortality, 48. 

Emotional life should be centred in 
soul, 54. 

Enjoyment not the end of existence, 
94. 

Entheism, its acceptance by Religion 
of Science, 24; its definition, 23. 

Epitaph of Benjamin Frankli^r^g. 

Established religions, their form 
mythological, 71. 

Eternity in laws of nature, 19. 

Ethics, a branch of science, 13; es- 
sentially uniform throughout uni- 
verse, 51; religious and irreligious, 
27. 

Everlastingness in laws of nature, 19 ; 
its ultimate authority, 21. 

Evils of life, how to combat them, 14. 

Evolution, cosmic, 24, 56; historical, 
Cnrist its key-note, 79; human, 29, 
48, 50; of religious and spiritual 
entities, 67, 72. 

Faith contrasted with creed, 9. 
Feeling, necessity of its education, 53. 
Franklin, Benjamin, his epitaphs, 49. 
Freethinker, 103. 

Galatians, Epistle to, cited, 83. 
Gesetzmdssigkeit, 11 1. 



Goal of religious development, 69, 72 

God, III. 

God, as viewed by science, 21, 22; of 
the Religion of Science, 106, 114- 
117; immutability of his will, 85; 
his incarnation, 51 ; in what sense 
one, 23 ; not a person, but super- 
personal, 23, 99; of paganism, 70; 
the eternity of nature, 24; the source 
and destiny of the soul, 55,99; vari- 
ous views of, 22, 97 ; a reality, 112. 

Gods, their true significance, 70. 

Gospels, their historical character, a 
purely scientific problem, 'j'j ; the 
miracles in, 78. 

Guidance in vicissitudes of life, 3. 

Habits, how acquired, 35, 47. 

Happiness, in union with God, 99, 
its purport and value, 28, 31 ; only 
possible through religion, 94. 

Harmony of natural laws, 20. 

Heaven and hell, conditions, not 
places, 99. 

Hedonism, 27, 29. 

Holtzmann, cited, 77. 

Hume, David, 58. 

Hypocrisy in prayer, 89. 

Ideal of religious development, 72, 73. 

Ideals embodied in legends, 78, 

Ideas, definition of, 36; implanted by 
education, 47; their relation to the 
ego, 39, 48, 50. 

Idolatry, in the churches, iv ; its def- 
inition, 70. 

Image of God, 51. 

Immortality, a moral question, 53, 57; 
a fact, 48, 58; its nature, 47, 56; its 
various representations, 48 ; neces- 
sary to evolution, 48. 

Immutability of natural laws, 19. 

Impulses, definition, 35, 36. 

Incantation, true prayer not an, 8g. 

Incarnation of God, 51. 

Indifference, religious, 9. 

Injunctions and the moral law, 109. 

Inquiry a religious duty, 10. 

Invisible church, its nature, v ; its 
significance, 73. 



INDEX. 



123 



Jesus, cited, 4, 81 ; his historic char- 
acter, 77. 

Kant, cited, 84, 88. 
Knowledge, cause of wonderful 
changes, 88, 89. 

Law of morality, 109. 

Laws of nature, ig, 20, 21, 50, 87, iii. 

Legends a revelation of ideals, 78. 

Lewins, 57. 

Liberty, advocated by St. Paul, 81 ; 
Christians its enemies, 80. 

Liebig on the alchemists, 66. 

Lord's prayer, no prayer in the com- 
mon sense, 89 ; quoted, 85. 

Luther, Martin, cited, iv. 

Man, his creation in the image of 
God, 51. 

Mark, cited, 80; the oldest of the 
Gospels, yy. 

Materialism, 112. 

Meaning in feelings, 37. 

Medulla Animae, of Tauler, cited, 97. 

Metaphysicism, 59. 

Method of finding a religion, 4. 

Mind, its origin, 37. 

Miracles, indicate the power of the 
Christ-ideal, 78 ; not besought by 
Christ, 85. 

Monotheism, 22. 

Moral, law of nature, 20; life a con- 
dition of revelation, 100 ; standards 
of the Religion of Science, 12, 57. 

Morality the expression of charac- 
ter, 57. 

Moses, in invisible church, v. 

Motives and ideas are the soul, 50. 

Mystery, dispelled by science, 42; its 
function, 14 ; of being, to whom re- 
vealed, 100, 

Mythological religions, their origin, 
66. 

Mythology, in religion, 72; in science, 
65, 68; its nature and functions, 65, 
78, 97, 99 ; now untenable, 71 ; when 
injurious, 66. 

Natural revelation the foundation of 

religion and science, 71. 
Nature, hostile to egotism, 54; in- 



creased knowledge of, 87 ; its inex- 
orable law, 21, 87. 

Necessity, 109. 

New birth, 56. 

Nominalism, iio-iii. 

Object of life, 3, 42. 

Open Court Publishing Company, its 

work, iii. 
Open questions in science, 13. 
Orthodoxy, the true, 10, 105. 

Paganism, its definition, 69; its evil, 
70 ; its consistency with true Chris- 
tianity, 83 ; its prevalence, iii, 77; 
its view of Sunday, 82. 

Pantheism, 22, 23. 

Parables, their usefulness, 70. 

Paul, St., cited, 83. 

Personal relation to God possible 
and imperative, 93. 

Personality, its constituent elements, 
47 ; its contents changeable, 40. 

Pharisees, name-Christians their suc- 
cessors, 90. 

Planets, their inhabitants, 51. 

Pleasure, ethics of, 27. 

Poet, functions of, 70. 

Polytheism, 22. 

Prayer, abolished by Christ, 85 ; in 
the Religion of Science, 71, 86; its 
pagan significance, 70 ; not suppli- 
cation, 88 ; not to be discarded, 86, 
87 ; should be an act of self-discip- 
line, 88; that of Christ and the 
Christian contrasted, 88, 90. 

Preachers, their teaching unreliable, 
81. 

Precepts of Religion of Science, 32. 

Priests, basis of their authority, 12; 
their teaching inconsistent and un- 
reliable, 81, 

Principles of Religion of Science, 8. 

Progress, Christians its enemies, 80; 
religious and scientific, v, 68, 72. 

Prophets, basis of their authority, i2, 

Prototype of soul, 51. 

Purpose of life, 3. 

Questions, of science 13. 



124 



INDEX, 



Race-experience, io6. 

Reactions of impulse, 36. 

Reason, its uniformity throughout the 
universe, 51; not opposed by Christ, 
84. 

Redeemer, the only, 9. 

Religion, 106 ; its basis, 8 ; its begin- 
ning, 6g; its definition, 3, 7, 69; its 
demands, 100; its development, v, 
67, 68, 72 ; its unity, v; not due to su- 
pernatural revelation, v, 71 ; not in 
conflict with science, 71; of Christ 
not ecclesiasticism, 90 ; purified by 
science, 42 ; secret of its benefits, 
100; the Christianity of Christ, 90; 
to some a mystery, 93. 

Religion of Science, church-religions 
its temporary substitutes, 100; com- 
pared with others, 95 ; its charac- 
ter, iii-vi ; on God, 114, 117. 

Religions, not to be abolished but 
purified, iii ; viewed by the Reli- 
gion of Science, 65. 

Religious truth, 52, 71. 

Resignation, of idea of self-owner- 
ship, 54 ; the true spirit of prayer, 
90. 

Resurrection, belief of Christians in 
its mythic form, 82 ; of the body, 
its significance, 48. 

Revelation, a synonym for science, 
iv; in the book of nature, iii, yy \ 
the true, in experience, 71, 108. 

Revelations, special, unknown to Re- 
ligion of Science, 71, 

Revision of doctrines, 10. 

Ritual, according to Religion of Sci- 
ence, 11; in Christianity, 80. 

Romans, epistle to, cited, 83. 

Sabbatarians make Christianity a 
nuisance, 83. 

Sabbath, its abolition by first Chris- 
tians, 82; its misunderstanding a 
sign of paganism, 83 ; question, 
opinion of Jesus on, 81. 

Sacraments, 11. 

Sansara and "nature," 96. 

Science, a synonym for revelation, 
iv; as a revelation of God, 108 ; its 
authority, 13 ; its definition, 7, 13 ; 



its influence on religious life, iv; 
its methods, 4 ; its progress, 68; its 
verdicts to be accepted, 12 ; its view 
of God, 21 ; not in conflict with re- 
ligion, 71 ; Religion of, 4, 7. 

Scientific conclusions, why not ac- 
cepted, 52. 

Scientists sometimes their own Pope, 
13 ; their authority, 12, 13 ; their 
place in the Religion of Science, 
12. 

Scribes and Pharisees, name-Chris- 
tians their successors, 90. 

Scriptures, their function, 81. 

Sectarianism disappearing, iv. 

Self, an incarnation of nature's di- 
vinity, 94 ; how constituted, 39, 50, 
55. 

Sensations are signs, 37. 

Sermon on the Mount, cited, 85. 

Settled questions in science, 13. 

Similes, their usefulness, 70. 

Sociology, a branch of science, 13. 

Soul, an idiosyncrasy of ancestors, 
48; from, in, and for God, 55; its 
elements and sources, 47, 50; its 
immortality, 47, 56 ; its nature, 35, 
41 ; its prototype, 51 ; its unity, 38; 
its value, 43; not our own, 54; not 
the ego, 41 ; of a book, 50. 

Sources of religious truth, 10, 71. 

Spirit of religion always the same, 95. 

Spiritual nature of the true self, 48. 

Sunday, its true and original charac- 
ter, 82 ; not the Sabbath of the 
Pharisees, 83; pagan view of, 82; 
question at the World's Fair, 82. 

Supernatural revelation not the foun- 
dation of religion, v, 71. 

Supplication not true prayer, 88. 

Support in tribulations, 3. 

Symbols, their true nature, 11. 

Tauler, Johannes, cited, 96-99. 
Telepathy in supposed operation of 

prayer, 88. 
Temptation, its benefits, 14. 
Theism, 22. 
Theories, worked out by reflection, 

47- 
Thought, definition, 37, ^7. 



INDEX, 



125 



Toleration, 9. 

Traditional religions harbingers of 
the true, 65. 

Tribulation, support in, 9. 

Truth, a picture of God, 52; destruc- 
tive in appearance only, 42; God's 
revelation, 81; its definition, 14, 19; 
its relation to duty, 31 ; name-Chris- 
tians its enemies, 80; not yet com- 
plete, 10; religious and scientific, 8. 

Unalterability of truth, 14. 

Union with God, Tauler's teaching 

concerning it, 97-99. 
Unity of the soul, 38, 39. 



Vain repetitions used by Christians 
in prayer, 86. 

Will, its definiiion, 36; of God the 
true object of prayer and aspira- 
tion, 86, 94. 

Work, the object of life, 94. 

World-picture in human soul, 50. 

World's Fair at Chicago, its Sunday 
opening, 81, 82. 

Worship prescribed by Religion of 
Science, 70. 

Zarathustra, in invisible church, v. 



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The Religion of Science. By Paul Carus- 25c. 

Three Introductory Lectures on the Science of Thought. 
By F. Max Muller. 25c. 

Three Lectttres on the Science of Language . By F. Max 
Muller. 25c. 

The Diseases of Personality. By Th. Ribot. 25c. 

The Psychology of Attention. By Th. Ribot. 25c. 

The Psychic Life of Micro- Organisms. By Alfred Binet. 
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The Nature of the State. By Paul Carus. 15c. 

On Double Consciousness. By Alfred Binet. 15c. 

Fundaf?tental Problems. By Paul Carus. 50c. 

The Diseases of the Will. By Th. Ribot. 25c. 

The Origin of Language. By Ludwig Noire. 15c. 

The Free Trade Struggle in England. By M. M. Trum- 
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Wheelbarrow on the Labor Question. By M. M. Trum- 
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The Gospel of Buddha. By Paul Carus. 35c. 

The Primer of Philosophy. By Paul Carus. 25c. 



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The Philosophy of Ancient India. By Prof. Richard Garbe. 

Buddhis77i and Christianity. By Paul Carus. 

The Lost Manuscript. A Novel. By Gustav Freytag. 

The Study of Sanskrit. By Prof. H. Oldenberg. 

Old Testament History. By Prof. C. H. Cornill. 

Me??iory as a General Function of Organised Matter, and The Spe- 
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THREE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF 
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ROMANES, GEORGE JOHN. 

DARWIN AND AFTER DARWIN. 

An Exposition of the Darwinian Theory and a Discussion of Post- 
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1. The Darwinian Theory. 

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THE PRIMARY FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 
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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTENTION. 

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THE SCIENCE OF MECHANICS. 

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POPULAR SCIENTIFIC LECTURES. 

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FREYTAG, GUSTAV. 

THE LOST MANUSCRIPT, 

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THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. 

Popular Sketches from Old Testament History. Frontispiece, Michael 
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THE RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 
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BINET, ALFRED. 

THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF MICRO-ORGANISMS. 

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ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 

New Studies in Experimental Psychology. 93 pages. Paper, 15 cent^ 

TRUMBULL, M. M. 

THE FREE TRADE STRUGGLE IN ENGLAND. 

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WHEELBARROW: Articles and Discussions on the Labor Question 
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EARL GREY ON RECIPROCITY AND CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 
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CARUS, PAUL. 

THE ETHICAL PROBLEM. 

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FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS. 

The Method of Philosophy as a Systematic Arrangement of Know] • 
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HOMILIES OF SCIENCE. 

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THE IDEA OF GOD. 

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TRUTH IN FICTION. Twelve Tales with a Moral. 

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THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 
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PRIMER OF PHILOSOPHY. 

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THE GOSPEL OF BUDDHA. According to Old Records. 

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THE REDEMPTION OF THE BRAHMAN. A Tale of Hindu Life. 
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EPITOMES OF THREE SCIENCES. 

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